


how fast the night changes

by sarcastic_fangirl01



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: DGHDA Beginners Bang, M/M, Normal!Todd, Vampire AU, Vampire!Dirk, Wichakookoo!Amanda, dghdabigbang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-09 10:20:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14714222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarcastic_fangirl01/pseuds/sarcastic_fangirl01
Summary: “Oh, my name is Dirk Gently.” He smiled again raising a hand. It was a normal smile until out of nowhere something else appeared there and oh God, were those fangs? “I’m a vampire.”





	how fast the night changes

**Author's Note:**

> This's been really fun to write, and I could do it with the support of @icantloseyou who beta'ed the whole work and the great @madeofplasma who did an amazing artwork for it.  
> I hope you like reading it as much as I liked writing it!

The giggles coming from the other side of the couch were starting to annoy him. Todd was about to throw the almost empty can of beer at his sister and his friend. Out of all the movies to watch on  Halloween night, all the scary slashers with monsters and apparitions, did they have to choose Interview With the Vampire?

When Amanda invited him to spend the famous day at her house, he had expected a night with the lights off, surrounded by their friends and with popcorn in his hands as they all watched a scary movie in the living room. Instead, he was sitting on an oh-so-lonely-couch waiting as Amanda and Farah spent way too much time making out before finally choosing a movie. Tina and Hobbs couldn’t make it, they’d said something about having to take care of a kid back in Bergsberg who’d lost his mother.

He was happy for his sister, Farah was an incredible woman capable of more than Todd could ever be. Amanda never told him how they met, though. Actually, it came out of the blue. One night, Amanda showed up with this beautiful girl presenting her as her new girlfriend. Todd had been stunned but went along with it anyway. After all, the smile on Amanda’s face when she was with her was brighter than he ever saw.

But their constant smooches were starting to make him uncomfortable.

“No, definitely no,” he shook his head at the infamous film the girls had picked. “I am _not_ going to watch some vampire bullshit on Halloween night.”

“Why not? Vampires are awesome.”

“Vampires are crap,” he stated with another sip at his drink. Farah shook her head, clearly disappointed. “Of all the monsters that could exist, they are the dumbest ones.”

“Sure, Todd.” Amanda rolled her eyes, a gesture so common to those with the ‘Brotzman’ genes.

“No, for real. Drinking blood to live? Pathetic. Glowing in the sun? What happened to burning in it? Dead but alive? They don’t need oxygen and they have no heartbeat - how are they walking then?”

He could go on with the list of reasons that he hated the fictional creatures, but he was cut off by Farah’s laugh. She took her hand out of Amanda’s to stop and calm herself.

“Wait, where is this all coming from?” she chuckled. “It seems like you have a serious issue going on with them.”

“When Todd was in first grade he dressed as a vampire for Halloween and all of his classmates made fun of him for it.” Amanda pointed at him with her beer, “Everyone was dressed as a Jedi or a superhero and he was the only one dressed as a little cute monster.”

“Tha-that’s not true!” But Farah’s laugh was louder than his excuse. “They’re just not that credible…”

“Sure thing,” Farah nodded, that annoying smile still on her face.

“I’m telling the truth!” He felt his ears warming up as well as his neck. God, he was going to kill Amanda for this one.

“Whatever, hater, why don’t you pick a movie then?” She handed him the remote.

“Great, now you’ll see what a true horror movie looks like.”

He decided on for a classic from his childhood: The Exorcist. A confident smirk spread across his face every time one of the girls shrieked or jumped in her seat. When at the end he discovered them on top of each other, he counted it as a small victory and granted himself a “did-it” medal. That would teach them not to fuck around with him.

He stayed for another round of beer, but when the clock struck 12 pm he decided it was time to go back to his apartment, as he had an early morning the next day for his job at the Perriman Grand Hotel. After watching him walk away in the direction of the nearest bus stop, Amanda went back inside to find Farah still sitting on the couch. Her brows were pulled together in a frown, eyes staring intensely at her phone screen. Amanda knew that expression, it meant she had a plan.

Amanda sat beside her and elbowed her in her ribs, “Hey, why the frowny face?”

“I was thinking over what you said about Todd… he can’t hate vampires that much.”

“I don’t know, I guess it’s a real trauma for him. I never understood.”

Farah sighed, eyes still on the contact information on her screen. Her eyes lifted to meet Amanda’s, were she could see the doubt and a just a twinkling of mischief shining there. Her lips slipped into a smirk.

“Do you think we could help him with that?” Farah bit her lip.

Amanda looked back at her girlfriend’s phone. It would really upset her brother, maybe even scare him, not to mention reveal her secret as well. She almost said no for that reason, but thought better of it. She had been wanting to finally tell him the truth about herself, after he had done the same for her. 

When Amanda discovered all of his lies, she couldn’t help but feel betrayed. She screamed at him, she insulted him and made him feel like shit. But after a week or so of doing what she felt his brother deserved, she knew she was being hypocritical. Amanda had her own secret that weighed on her shoulders every day she didn’t tell him. And Todd deserved to know that part of his sister just as she deserved to know about his non-existent pararibulitis. And maybe this was the way to start opening up about it.

And who knew? Maybe she could laugh a little bit while doing so.

“Call him.”

After a few beeps, he answered.

“Hi, yes it’s me, Farah.” Amanda giggled and she gestured for her to be quiet, bringing a finger to her lips. “I wanted to tell you about this guy I know…”

 

* * *

 

Todd felt his body shaking with exhaustion as he entered his building. Since when did he feel so tired this early in the evening? His yearning for  his bed was increasing with every step he took up the stairs. As Todd put the keys in his door he felt a pang of pain in his neck. He lifted a hand to the area trying to relieve it a bit while a deep yawn escaped his lips. Damn, he felt his eyes closing already.

He was halfway to his bedroom when a noise from the living room drew his attention to the window, where a  large, colourful figure was trying to climb into his house. It was a man, his skin was so pale Todd thought looked ready to faint. This was highlighted by the bright yellow jacket that contrasted perfectly in the dark colours of the night. His auburn hair was falling in his face, blocking it from Todd’s view. Todd scanned his eyes around the room searching for something to defend himself with at the presence of a possible threat. He grabbed the first thing he spotted on the floor, the strange person’s gaze following this movement. Todd looked up to meet a pair of blue eyes looking back at him with intrigue.

“Hi,” the stranger beamed at Todd.

Without thinking twice, Todd threw his weapon at him. It was a shoe. The man tripped over, falling to the floor. When he stood up again, tiding his jacket, he had a weird look on his face. He seemed to find the situation… funny?

“Wow, that is a really _rude_ way of starting a conversation.” A marked British accent accompanied his words.

“Who the hell are you, man?” Todd screamed.

“Oh, my name is Dirk Gently.” He smiled again raising a hand. It was a normal smile until out of nowhere something else appeared there and oh God, were those fangs? “I’m a vampire.”

Saying Todd overreacted would be kind. He _freaked out_. He ran straight to the kitchen with the other man following him. He opened the fridge. Where was that stupid thing?

“Well, so far this has been the best reaction I’ve ever gotten since…”

“Get the hell out of here!” he raised the garlic straight into the vampire’s face, who took on a look of momentary terror before taking a bite from it.

“Hmm, garlic, I love one of these as a nighttime treat.”

Todd gaped. So garlic wouldn’t work. He rushed to where all of his knives were kept, tripping over the furniture in his way. He grabbed a hilt but five cold fingers wrapped around his hand, stopping him from pulling it out. Dirk’s nose was wrinkled as he shook his head.

“Those won’t work, not made of silver.”

Todd snatched his hand back as Dirk released it. He was starting to hyperventilate. He remembered having a Crucifix somewhere. It had to work, vampires were against religion, right? But he proved himself wrong when the vampire took it from him, placing it on the side with a bored look.

“Great idea, but sadly I’m an atheist.”

That guy didn’t seem to be deterred from his mission to… well, Todd wasn’t really sure about what he wanted specifically. Drink his blood? Turn him? Kill him for the fun of it? All he was doing so far was ramble a thousand words a minute.

“-and maybe you should consider having some plants, because it seems pretty depressing on here so-woah!” He raised his hands in front of him as a shield. “Easy there.”

Todd was brandishing a pointed wooden stick, a little shakily he must admit. It was an improvised souvenir of a mountain trip he’d made with his ex-bandmates. It wasn’t a big thing but it was enough to make Dirk back up a few steps.

“Don’t you dare come closer or… or I will kill you!”

“A-actually, you can’t kill me with that.”

“Then why are you so scared?” he frowned in confusion.

“Because that hurts like hell, have you ever been stabbed?”

“No but…don’t make me do it to you!” he reinforced.

“Could you please stop trying to kill me and listen to what I have to say?”

“Why? So you can kill me easier?”

“I do not want to kill you, bloody hell,” he snorted. “Are you this impolite to every person that steps inside of your house?”

“No I… you…” he sighed. “Ten minutes. You’ve got my attention for ten minutes. But the stick stays with me.”

He seemed happy with that resolution. They sat around the table. It would be a strange image for anyone to walk in on. On one side, there was this sickly pale man with an obnoxiously brilliant jacket with his hands intertwined in front of him. On the other side, the grumpy owner of the place, drumming his fingers against the table with a raised wood weapon in his other hand.

This was going to be an interesting night.

“I’m listening,” Todd prompted him.

“Right. Well, for starters, I wanted to say you have a really nice house.”

Todd glanced around at the stains on the walls, the cheap furniture he’d bought in the space of a week, the flickering lights from the other room. He raised an eyebrow at him.

“Okay. Bad start.” Dirk shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“Let me go to the point,” Todd said, leaning in.

“Sure.”

“What do you want here?”

“A friend,” he stated nonchalantly.

“A friend,” Todd repeated incredulously. “You mean… me?”

“Pfft, do you see someone else here?” he turned to both sides and gasped, eyes opening wide, “Or do you have a roommate?”

“No… I live alone here.”

Now Todd was convinced the guy was crazy. Maybe insane. He broke through his window to have a chat with him and be his friend. And he talked about it as if it was a normal thing to do. Of course, being a vampire might limit his opportunities to actually have a relationship with anyone.

Todd sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Now he was trying to understand the logic of it… he was probably going crazy too. He stared at the man in front of him. If he saw him laying down on the floor with his eyes closed Todd would believe he was dead. Besides the first impression of his skin, it wasn’t only colour-deprived, it was also opaque. It could’ve been Todd’s imagination, but it was as if life just wasn’t present in Dirk’s body. There were also dark circles under his eyes. When did he last rest? Or did he _need_ any rest at all?

“-and we could have lots of fun! I could tell you stories, answer every question you have about the world, teach you to fly… no, I’m lying, I can’t teach you to fly. But I can do the rest! What do you say?”

“Excuse me, what?” Todd blinked bringing himself back to the present.

“Haven’t you heard a word of what I just told you? Wow, you really need to fix that attention problem.” Todd wanted to punch him. “I could come back, every night, and we could hang out. Talk about things. Share experiences. Do friends stuff!”

He was smiling at him, expectation clear on his face. Todd couldn’t be more confused. Every piece of logic and common sense he had gathered along during his life was telling him that it was impossible. Vampires didn’t exist. They were fictional - and _dumb -_ creatures created to scare children on Halloween. This must be a dream.

And yet, the evidence was right in front of him, beaming with wide blue eyes that had too many of emotions to be dead. And he was convinced he hadn’t fallen asleep on the middle of the stairs.

“Look, I have to work tomorrow.”

“Where?”

“At a hotel,” he reluctantly answered.

“Oh, that must be so fun.” Dirk nodded.

“Not really… the point is-” Todd shook his head “-I really need to sleep.”

“Sure. Yes, the alive must rest. Of course you do.” He sounded uncomfortable. “Then I can come back… tomorrow night?”

“Whatever. As long as you don’t try to kill me…”

“It would never occur to me.” Dirk stood up and walked to the door, but before going out he turned around to face him again. “Thanks for the chat, err…”

“Todd, my name is Todd.”

“A nice name,” he smirked. “Goodnight Todd.”

And he disappeared. Todd hurried to lock every possible entrance to his apartment; every window, exit door, the main door. Even if he thought the guy seemed kind enough to hold his promise, he didn’t really know him yet. He had the right to be scared.

When he finally laid down to sleep, he felt his muscles release all the tension he’d been holding for the last half an hour. Staring at the white ceiling, still with his clothes on and too tired to thread two words together, he reconsidered the possibility of it being a hallucination. A probable creation of his mind resulting from the hours he spent in wakefulness. Surely it would go away in the morning, being only a funny story to tell at parties. Yeah, that had to be it.

Except it wasn’t, because the next night, he was back. He didn’t need to do much to make Todd aware of his presence. A subtle knock on the window glass, and there he was. The first night, Todd still held onto the stick. It gave him a fake sense of safety. But, with the passing of the nights, he discovered he didn’t really need it. Dirk’s existence stopped being a fearful reminder and became a constant annoyance.

Every night without fail after the sun was gone, he’d make his appearance at Todd’s home. Sometimes he even took the elevator. When he said all he wanted was to talk, he really meant it. Usually, the events passed the same way: Dirk would come, Todd would let him in and when the Brit started talking, Todd deliberately ignored him. But even if he tried to not pay him any attention at all, he couldn’t help but listen to some parts of his speeches. And that’s how he learnt things about Dirk. Dirk loved cats, especially those who follow him after he petted them for (at least) five minutes. He thought Americans were really rude, always too worried about their own stuff to help a lost guy in the crowd―though Todd thought it may have had something to do with Dirk’s nonexistent social skills. But he liked the forests, his favourite was the one near the park, where he could hide during the sunny time and enjoy the darkness for longer.

“Have you ever felt…” he said one time, lying on Todd's couch and playing with the light of the moon coming through the curtains, “like you wanted to get something that could both make you really happy but also kill you?”

That night, Todd was playing around with his guitar. It was a Saturday night. He had to come back to work on Monday, so he took those days to enjoy playing some music. As Dirk was shamelessly occupying the couch, he had settled for the armchair instead. He lifted his head from the strings to pay proper attention to him. It seemed like a serious question; and from his experience with Dirk, he hadn’t thought he was capable of serious conversation.

“What do you mean?”

“The sunlight,” he raised his hand and moved his fingers amongst the halo of light. “I’ve always seen it. I think I remember how it felt. But it’s been so long...”

The expression on his face and the tone of his voice changed then. There was a new tenderness, a soft side Todd hadn’t seen before. Sure he knew about the dorky side, the one Dirk always showed to him. But this was something new. Something like… nostalgia.

“Sometimes, when I’m in the shadows,” he continued, “I can see it. And I want to stretch my hand, want to feel again the warm sensation of the rays touching my skin.”

He then stretched his fingers, bathing his pale hand in the white light of the moon. It was an intimate moment, so much so that Todd felt the need to look away. It was a moment that showed something he was sure belonged to Dirk’s heart. Perhaps, the need to feel alive again. Todd was about to answer, he even opened his mouth to make a sound, but Dirk went back to his nonsense and silly talking before he could even try. Whatever was there, whatever Todd got to see, was over.

 

* * *

 

It had been weeks since these encounters started. Somehow, in a way his brain couldn’t begin to understand, Todd was getting used to the night meetings happening at his apartment. It was something that just happened. Did he like it? He couldn’t say that he hated it, Todd always let Dirk come in when he arrived after all. And although he tried all the possible methods to forget about his existence, Todd had found himself actually listening and replying to him sometimes.

But friends? No, they weren’t friends. They were… acquaintances. Acquaintances that spend almost every night together.

He needed to stop thinking about that.

He got up from his bed. It was a sunny Sunday morning. Perfect to go out with friends, maybe have a date, spend the day outside… which would be great if he had someone to do so with. Perhaps he could ask Amanda and Farah if they wanted to hang out. Or maybe only one of them, since he didn’t want to third wheel again.

As if someone was reading his mind, Todd’s phone buzzed informing him he got a call. From his sister, specifically. Todd hit answer with a smile on his face. After the pararibulitis event, in which he told her all the truth about his condition―or lack thereof―, things got weird between them. At first, she hated him. She said he fucked things up. She said she never wanted to see him again. They cried. Amanda screamed. It was painful to remember. And suddenly, like two weeks later, she began to call again. Said she wanted to meet. Todd had been ecstatic. They cried a bit more, but a healthy amount of tears this time. They hugged, and Todd could remember how his chest warmed up the moment his arms were wrapping his sister. He’d thought it’d been too fast. His mind had created a lot of scenarios following his confession and in all of them, Amanda was never going to love him again. But he didn’t mind. He’d got his little sis again. The relationship wasn’t what it was before, but they were working on it.

“Hey, sis, what’s up?” he grinned.

“It’s been a long time since we talked, how are you?” Amanda asked. She sounded different. It wasn’t the chill mood she always had when speaking on the phone. It was more… unsteady.

“Fine, everything is fine. And you?”

“Great… did anything interesting happen to you lately that I should know?”

That was a curious question. He was about to say ‘no’. But then the night before came to his mind. Dirk gave a thirty minute monologue about the importance of always having a colourful item of fashion in every outfit. Todd remembered he hadn’t told Amanda about Dirk. Or told anyone, actually. It wasn’t like he wanted people to think he was insane. The company he had every night was one of his best kept secrets. Nevertheless, he knew he could trust her. Of all the people in the world, Amanda would be the one who could understand him the best.

“Actually… Amanda I wanted to tell you something,” he shifted in his place. This was going to be hard. “The  last few days I’ve-”

“Wait!” she cut him mid-sentence. “Wh-why don’t you come over? I mean, I haven’t seen you since Halloween. It would be cool if we met up.”

She was stuttering. Something might be wrong with her, Todd thought.

“Yeah… alright. I’ll be there soon.”

His suspicions were proved right when she answered  the door. Amanda had a sweater with the sleeves long enough for her to play with them, the fingers tangling around the end of the fabric. She let him pass to the living room―way prettier than his― and they sat in awkward silence for a minute.

Amanda cleared her throat. “Do you want coffee?” she scratched the back of her neck.

“No, um, I’m fine,” he shook his head. “Amanda, is everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, totally.” She nodded several times before ducking her head. “What did-what did you wanna talk about?”

She seamed to be loosing her voice at the end of every sentence.

“Oh, yeah,” he bit his lip. His palms were getting sweaty. “Well…do you remember the last night we saw each other?”

She nodded, her breathing sounded heavy. Was she going to have an attack?

“Wait, really, I’m concerned now, are you-?”

“Continue.”

With the sharp look she gave him he couldn’t disobey her.

“Okay. I met someone that night.” He proceeded cautiously.

He waited for a response. Nothing in return. Now he felt like _he_ was lacking oxygen. He took a deep breath.

“He-he isn’t normal.”

“Why?” it came out strangled from her throat.

“Amanda.” This was going to sound crazy. “He’s a vampire.”

Todd had expected a reaction from his sister. A gasp, a laugh, a tease, _something_. What he surely wasn’t expecting was what followed his confession.

“I know.”

He blinked twice before processing the words, “You know? How?”

He could see her gulp.

“Because I sent him.”

There was only static in his brain. It took a couple of seconds before the words could filter through.

“There is something I’ve been trying to tell you about me. Something you never knew.”

Amanda was clearly struggling her way through it. Todd wished he could do something to help her, but his body didn’t seem to agree with him. All he could do was stare with a blank expression.

She was crying. “Todd, I’m a witch.”

“Wha- no, that’s impossible.” He shook his head, unable to believe it, “Witches do _not_ exist.”

“Oh c’mon. You yourself told me that you have a vampire friend-”

“He is not my friend.”

“-so why is me being a witch any different?” she grabbed him by his shoulders startling him. “I can show you. If you let me, I can show you everything!”

“Wait, no,” he moved away “That can’t be true. I-I mean, you can’t be, you would’ve told me, you…”

The shine in Amanda’s eyes brought him back to simpler times, when she would go to him to find comfort after being hurt by others. The same little girl who always counted on her big brother to take care of her.

“It is true.”

“Yes,” she pleaded, “You only have to listen. Then you can do whatever you want with that information.”

 “And how do I know that you won’t cast a spell on me to make me believe you?”

“I would never…” the hurt contorted her features. She sighed. “Just follow me.”

Amanda guided him to a part of the house he didn’t know about. In her room under the rug, there was a wooden trapdoor. After a mumble from him ―“Of course, it’s always under the rug”― she ordered him to go down. The first impression was the smell. The mouldy smell, typical of rooms that were never touched by a ray of sunlight. But at the next moment it mixed with a new fragrance, some soft notes, others sour, others sweet and bitter that mixed into a whirlwind of smells that disorientated him for a minute.

The place itself wasn’t too big. Enough to fit two wooden tables and three bookshelves. He paced around, taking his time with every new thing he saw. There were plastic tupperwares with things as “rosemary”, “mandrake” and “belladonna”. Different kinds of rocks, in every imaginable colour, were laid on the shelves next to books with leather so old that Todd sneezed just by being near them. Ziploc bags with liquid of questionable provenance which had labels that made him shiver such as “falling limbs” or “death stare” spread across the nearest table.

The poor lighting only helped to contribute to the lugubrious aspect of the room. Amanda was sat in a short chair that surely had seen better days, her eyes following every movement Todd made. He decided to finally land his gaze on her.

“How long?”

“Since you moved out,” she ducked her head. “I started to notice some stuff. Weird stuff. At first, I was scared. Thought it had something to do with pararibulitis. But after a while, I discovered that the things I could do, they didn’t hurt. So I investigated and when I could finally manage them I opened this little business.”

“As a witch.” He still had problems keeping up with the story.

“Witchakookoo, actually. It’s like a witch. But with a kookoo.”

“Oh please, tell me you don’t have a cuckoo clock.”

“Farah thought that would be funny,” she let herself smile, looking more comfortable with the conversation. “But no, I don’t.”

“Wait,” he was getting tired of that word. “Does Farah know?”

“Well, of course. How do you think I met her?”

It might have seemed obvious to her, but Todd had no idea. He crossed his arms over his chest.

“I don’t know,” he snapped back, “you never told me.”

“She was a client,” she muttered. His bitter tone made her step back. “Her boss was a vampire, and he was in danger. She came for help and then… it happened.”

“It happened.” Todd raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “Things don’t ‘just happen’, Amanda.”

“Yes, they do!” she excused herself, fidgeting with her sleeves. “Sometimes things just happen when they happen.”

By the change of expression on her face, Todd knew Amanda must have noticed how little patience he had left.

“We had some friends in common, she met them because of me. We started hanging out and with time we got together. It’s not a big story.” She clicked her tongue, “It was pretty quick if you ask me.”

“You had friends in common? And you hung out with them?”

He had a bitter taste on his tongue. How did he not know any of this?

“Yeah, nothing that important, just a fairy, like two other witches…”

“And you never told me any of this,” he spat.

She froze. Todd thought the temperature of the room had lowered two degrees as he glared at her in complete silence, his harsh words still floating in the air between them.

“I couldn’t tell you any of this,” she spoke after a while, “You didn’t know…”

“That you were a witch, yes.” Todd stood up, opening and closing his hands as anger started to flow through his system. “But whose fault is that, huh?”

Todd blew air through his nose, resuming his pacing in an attempt to calm down. But his feelings were boiling inside him, ready to release in a rash of verbal rage.

“You see how serious this is, right?” Todd listed with his fingers as he spoke, “Your friends? Your job? _Your girlfriend?_ You practically hid your entire life from me!”

“Yeah, but I thought-”

“Thought what, Amanda?” he suddenly opened his arms at his sides, struggling with the desperation to find the right words to express his tangled thoughts. “I’m your brother, for fuck’s sake! There’s nothing you could tell me that would make me hate you. And yet, you lied to me.”

“I didn’t want any of this,” his sister replied with a shaky voice.

“Well, you’ve created this whole situation.”

“You lied to me too!” she raised her voice, standing up as well so her eyes were level with Todd’s.

Oh, she played the magical card.

“Yeah, about a stupid mistake I made.”

“You mean _all_ the mistakes you made.”

“But I tried to be better!” Todd emphasized jabbing a finger to his chest. “I took care of you, I did something with my life, I tried to change! What you did is lie to me about who you are!”

He didn’t know when they started shouting but at this point, his voice resonated in the small basement. Amanda’s eyes were red and wet, and by the heat on his face, Todd knew he couldn’t look any different. Todd didn’t want to argue with her, not when things were finally starting to work between them. But the need to yell at her, to tell her to go to hell, to kick or break or punch something until he bled, it was still there. Perhaps, that’s what Amanda felt when he confessed about not having pararibulitis.

Todd let out a single deep breath. He felt his shoulders fall in defeat as Amanda waited for his response with a nervous tick.

“Look, I don’t wanna fight,” Todd felt a tight grip on his heart, “but I think it would be better if we stopped talking for a while…”

Something changed in Amanda’s face. It was like seeing her defences fall right in front of him. Todd knew that expression; the one you make when everything around you is falling to the ground and you desperately try to hold on to something that could help you to steady yourself. He didn’t want to see that on her face, but she deserved it in some way.

“But, we don’t have to! I can show you…”

“No,” he stated firmly. “I’m not saying I don’t want to see you ever again. I just… need some time to process all of this.”

 On his way home, sitting on the bus, he still couldn’t say a word. Since the moment he stepped out of Amanda’s house, his eyes were glued to an invisible point in front of him, letting his mind focus only on the swirl of thoughts in his brain. Even when he got to his apartment, he occupied himself with simple tasks such as cleaning or cooking to keep his attention on the process of understanding his new reality.

His sister was a witch. She was since he went to university, a few years before he started with his own spiral of lies. She had a girlfriend, whose boss was a vampire. They had friends in common, a fairy and two witches as she said.

What had his life become?

Todd spent the rest of his day going over the same chain of thought again and again. He didn’t even notice when a certain man came climbing through his window. At least, not until he was standing right in front of him.

Dirk didn’t pay attention to him at first, so used to the silence coming from Todd at every visit he made. But after the first few seconds, in which Todd didn’t even greet him with his usual annoyed eye roll, he knew something was wrong. Dirk crouched in front of him and saw his absent look. That was enough to bring Todd back to the present. Without thinking twice―which later he would admit was a mistake―, he grabbed Dirk by his jacket and pushed him against the wall.

“Tell me what you know about my sister right now before I throw you out of the window you just came through.”

His eyes were opened wide and Todd could feel his hands trembling against his chest, but at the moment he spoke Dirk seemed to relax a bit.

“Oh,” he sighed, “that’s what you want to talk about.”

Todd glared at him making the Brit babble the beginning of an explanation.

“I don’t know anything about your sister except for her name.”

“You’re lying. She said she sent you here.”

“Okay I can explain that,” he pushed him by his shoulders putting some space between them.

Dirk took a seat on the couch. Todd, on the other hand, stood in the middle of the living room, ready to learn the connection between the vampire and Amanda. Dirk tidied his clothes and took a breath before speaking.

“I’ve always wanted to be a detective. Solving mysteries was something that called my attention even when I was a child. And let me tell you that I was very good at it, one time I found all the lost cats from my neighbourhood. But when I grew up and I was turned to… well, this, I couldn’t be a normal detective. So I became a supernatural detective. I helped people who had problems with unnatural creatures, such as me! I was hired by a multimillionaire called Patrick Springs, here in America. He was a vampire who was being hunted by a group of ridiculously unprofessional hunters. When I came here, he made me work with his bodyguard, a strong woman who had nothing to envy of the CIA, if you ask me. After a week or so of an incredible and brain-melting turn of events were Patrick ended up dead but his daughter was safe, the woman kept my number. One night, she called me saying that her girlfriend, Amanda, had a brother who would be more than excited to meet me.”

“And she sent you my address?”

“Something like that.” He cocked his head raising an eyebrow. “She gave me directions but I had to ask a lot of people how to get here and let me tell you, they aren’t as polite as they like to think.”

“So… you have nothing to do with Amanda.” Todd sat on the other side of the couch.

“Nothing,” Dirk shook his head nervously. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” he tried to avoid the subject, but as Dirk kept staring at him with intrigue, Todd couldn’t help but continue. “My life has become a mess lately.”

“Why?” he frowned worriedly.

“I discovered today that my sister has lied to me about a big thing and I feel… like everything is falling down,” he stared at his clasping hands.

“She’s important to you, right?” Dirk asked with a low voice.

“She’s basically the only person I have left. The only person I care the most about.”

Todd felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to see Dirk staring with the frown still on his face and pursed lips showing his concern. Todd was about to tell him it wasn’t necessary to show him pity when Dirk interrupted him.

“I’m pretty sure that with a bond like yours you will sort this out. Maybe in a week, maybe in a year, but eventually you will do it. If you love her that much, then you don’t have to worry about it. Family can be shitty sometimes, but it always finds a way back to you.”

Todd stared at him in confusion. Why did he care that much about him? He was only a bastard that tried to kill him repeatedly and then proceeded to ignore him.

“Why are you here?”

“Oh,” he shrugged, “because I’ve been coming for a month, I didn’t want to leave you hanging on.”

“No I mean… Why did you come here in first place?”

“Because I wanted a friend.”

“But why me? Why not someone else?”

Dirk pondered it for a while before answering.

“It’s really hard for me to do this in normal conditions. People don’t really like being around me,” he snorted.

“I wonder why.” The words came out of his mouth before he could stop them, but Dirk didn’t seem to be offended by them. He even looked like he agreed.

“I don’t know, something about the blood-sucking probably.”

Silence settled among them. Todd glanced at Dirk out of the corner of his eye. He was looking at the floor, but his mind was somewhere else. Suddenly he felt bad for the lonely vampire. An idea started to form in his brain, an idea Todd thought he might regret in the future.

“Wait here for a second.”

He left a frowning Dirk on the couch to go to inspect the little shelf in the kitchen. Coming back with a bottle and a glass in each hand, Todd sat again pouring some of the ambar liquid for him.

“What are you doing?” Dirk asked raising an eyebrow comically.

“I’ll let you talk.” He simply answered.

“I already do,” the vampire didn’t seem to understand his point.

“Yes but… I’ll answer this time.”

Dirk gasped.

“Are you going to _talk_ to me?”

“Yes, but I need a least four of these to be drunk enough for this conversation,” Todd nodded towards to his already full glass. “Now, go ahead. What do you wanna talk about?”

“Well, I’m not really sure. I never got this far with anyone. What do you want to know?”

The cheery smile on his face told Todd he was doing the right thing. This brought back a memory of the first night, where Dirk first entered through his window. He still had the same rusty leather jacket from that day, as well as the not-so-white shirt, the blue tie with white dots and the red jeans. It was a weird combination of colours, not something Todd would personally wear, but somehow they seemed to fit perfectly with his eccentric and outgoing personality.

“When we met,” he started thoughtfully, “you said you could tell me things. What were you talking about?”

“Oh, I know loads of historical facts and rumours that you would have never guessed.”

Todd thought about that comment. He’d never stopped to consider how old Dirk must be. Maybe more than a century, or even a few hundred years.

“Like…?”

“Well, for instance, did you know that in the Middle Ages, people thought-” he came closer to him, as if he was going to tell him a secret, and he whispered, “-the Earth was flat?”

Todd snorted before laughing out loud.

“That’s not a secret.”

“What do you mean?” Dirk seemed offended by this, “Of course it is!”

“Dirk, I think everyone knows that. They teach that in school. _Elementary school_.” Todd highlighted the ridiculousness of Dirk’s statement.

“Oh… really?” he shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“Yeah… that’s what you wanted to tell me? Very well-known historical facts? I thought you might have something better than that.”

“Well, I know other stuff,” the man hurried to say.

“Sure, like what?” Todd taunted before taking a sip of whiskey.

“Well, I don’t think you know that, before becoming the Pope, Pius II wrote an erotic novel in his free time,” Dirk declared matter-of-factly.

Todd spat all the liquid across the couch. He was sure it would leave a dark stain in the already stained fabric, but he couldn’t care less about that. The laughter came out of him without his permission.

“No, you’re lying,” he said as soon as he could talk again.

“No, I’m not,” Dirk replied with a silly smile.

“Of course you are! That can’t be true.” Todd shook his head before taking another sip, this time without any furniture-damaging incidents.

“Why not, huh?” the vampire asked goofily.

“I don’t know, because it’s the Pope, man. It’s impossible!” he pointed out with his glass.

“Then you would freak out if I told you that the Romans used human urine as mouthwash.”

“No,” he laughed again, “this is where I draw the line. That’s just disgusting. A-and you can’t prove it!”

“Research it,” he simply said, his eyes shone with amusement. “Then you’ll know that I’m right.”

“I will,” he nodded biting his lower lip, “I will just to shut your know-it-all mouth.”

“Do you wanna know more stuff?” Dirk opened wide his eyes.

The atmosphere of light fun freed him more than the whiskey he was drinking. Even when the moon was fully up in the sky, the darkness had descended and they only had Todd’s standing lamp to illuminate them, Todd felt he could go on with that conversation for hours. After two more glasses of alcohol, the bottle long forgotten on the couch, they were both sitting on the floor, laughing at all the stupid rumours Dirk was trying to convince him were true. Both of them felt relaxed, this proven by Dirk’s inseparable jacket laying down on the floor along with his tie. Todd had just stopped laughing and they settled into a comfortable silence. Oh he really needed one of those, there had been so many uncomfortable ones lately. Dirk was sitting cross-legged at his side, leaning against the couch with a bright look on his face. And it occurred to Todd that he hadn’t see Dirk’s true smile until now. He had been doing this fake grins where he would lift the corners of his lips, and sometimes show his teeth. But now the beam reached his eyes, wrinkling them at the corners.

“Dirk, I have a question…” he said before being able to regret it.

“Yeah?”

“How old are you, exactly?”

“Now you’re drunk enough that you want to know about me?” he gave him a lopsided smile. The shadows on his face made him look paler but also highlighted the sharpness of his features.

“Fuck off,” Todd replied. “And you didn’t answer.”

“I’ve lived too many years to this point of my life,” Dirk sighed deeply, his eyes staring at the wall.

“How many?” he inquired intrigued, leaning closer with curiosity.

“Thirty-two,” he looked dead-serious at him.

Todd waited, expecting it to be a joke. As Dirk didn’t go on with it and continued to stare, Todd had to accept it as a truth.

“No way,” he lifted an eyebrow. “How do you know all this stuff then?”

“Well I’ve told you what my work is,” the Brit grimaced as he shrugged. “I’ve met a lot of other supernatural beings who have lived longer than me. They’ve told some stories while we worked together.”

Todd nodded. He placed the empty glass aside before turning back to him.

“How did you do it?”

“Oh, it was really simple. The only thing I had to do was ask about other experiences and they started to talk without needing me to-”

“No,” he interrupted him, “I mean, the detective thing.”

“Oh,” Dirk looked taken by surprise, “Well, it was pretty interesting, actually…”

Todd began to think he may have said the wrong thing, that it was a sensitive subject for him.

“You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to,” Todd didn’t realise he’d put a hand on Dirk’s elbow until he finished talking. Dirk looked at it as if his hand was a star fallen from the sky.

“No,” he grabbed his hand longer than necessary before taking it off his arm, “it’s okay. It’s not a big deal.”

According to Dirk’s story, after the incident that turned him into a vampire, he was lost in the streets of London. He was alone, cold, and _dead_. He spent days wandering without a clue on what to do next. When one day, he found another like him. Except she had a lot of hair. And sharper fangs. And sometimes a tail. Well, she was a werewolf, but still she wasn’t normal. And this woman told him she had lost her brother. Something rang in Dirk’s head that moment, and he offered to help her in exchange for a place to stay the night. Not only he did find her brother, but also he discovered that he was in the middle of a mafia war going on in that zone.

After that, Dirk realized he was good at detecting. Even if he didn’t follow the rules of a normal private detective and most of his cases ended in strange situations under much weirder conditions, he was good at it. So he decided to start this little mobile business for lost creatures in search of someone who could help them to find their way.

Todd was amazed by it. There was something in Dirk’s eyes when he told the story, a feeling he couldn’t entirely figure out but that gave him the sensation that he was more than happy with his life. Completely opposite to Todd, who more than often wanted to trash everything and follow his music-related dreams.

“I’m pretty sure you’ve helped a lot of people with those… weird methods.”

“Yeah, what can I say,” he shrugged. “I like helping people. I always thought that if I helped them then it would be easier for me to befriend them.”

His tone was deep, his voice only heard for the silence of the night. Dirk was frowning, and Todd thought it was wrong. Somehow, he always associated Dirk’s name with his  excited smile, the happy eyes, and the glowing face. Seeing him with a sad expression, Todd thought it didn’t belong there.

“Maybe you just needed to try other methods,” he suggested.

“Pardon me?” the Brit blinked coming back from the depths of his mind.

“I mean, maybe all you had to do was climb through one more window.” Todd hoped he could transmit his thoughts with only those words. He wasn’t that good at feelings and sentimental stuff.

“Well, you see how it turned out,” Dirk smirked. “You tried to kill me four times in one night.”

“But… you have a friend now.”

Dirk looked at him with a weird face, as if Todd had said something stupid.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”

Of course he didn’t. Todd sighed and rolled his eyes.

“What I’m saying is that I want to be your friend, Dirk.”

Todd didn’t know how only one face could do so many expressions in the span of two seconds. First Dirk looked confused, then surprised and then extremely happy. It reminded him of a little child after being told they could go to McDonald’s. It almost made Todd smile too, but he limited himself to a little smirk.

They continued their meeting with theories and facts for two other hours before Dirk left to let Todd sleep. The next day, at work, Todd found himself actually searching the facts Dirk told him last night, and great was his surprise when he discovered every single one of them were true. He chuckled at the last one.

“You bastard,” he whispered.

“What’s up Brotzman?” his co-worker leaned on the reception desk, “Something interesting last night?”

“You would never guess, Mandy,” Todd smiled from the other side, closing the tabs used for his research.

“Hmmm, we knew it,” the short-haired girl smiled with enthusiasm, “Gary said it could be something related to you sister, but Sharon and I knew there was another girl in the matter.”

“Wait, what? What do you mean with a girl?” he completely ignored the comment about Amanda.

“Yes, you are practically glowing, Todd. And you’re always sort of depressing. So we thought you had fun last night, am I right?” she winked her eye at him.

Todd blushed furiously, “N-no, nothing to do with that, actually.”

“Well… I don’t know what it was, but you should keep doing it, cause you look happier than I ever saw you.”

And she wasn’t that wrong, because after that night, the encounters with Dirk resulted more enjoyable to Todd. He never thought after his first impression that Dirk would be such a good company. They would spend nights talking about trivial stuff, Todd would hear more stories about Dirk’s weird cases and sometimes he would tell some of his own memories too. And when he was in the mood, Todd played something with his guitar to kill the time. Todd even began to wish for the night to came so he could spend more time with him.

Now that he wanted to pay attention to his recently acquired friend, he found out more things about him. Like Dirk’s so British love for tea, for example. Or his stupid hate for coffee, that Todd couldn't comprehend. Or how he didn’t know what a tv-show was. The night he discovered that, Todd was in the middle of making dinner when Dirk appeared.

“Isn’t it a little too early to come?” he asked while opening the window.

Dirk made his best to fit through the little gap. The window was as old as the rest of the building, which was a lot, and now the hinges were getting rusty, which made it difficult to open it enough for Dirk’s tall body to pass normally. Still he insisted on “keeping the tradition”.

When Dirk finally stood up in there he froze with his open mouth before sniffing the air.

“What is that smell?”

“My food. You came before I had dinner this time,” he returned to the kitchen, with Dirk following behind as a lost puppy. “I’m sorry but I have to focus on this before I fuck it up.”

“Oh, no problem,” Dirk nodded sitting on a chair. “I will wait here.”

“This will take a long time,” Todd warned him before turning on the heat of the stove.

“Well, there isn’t so much I can do, right?”

“You can watch the TV if you want.”

The silence that followed was awkward. He turned around to see Dirk frowning at the floor with a disoriented expression hiding under his auburn hair. Todd didn’t understand what was the problem. Did Dirk have some problem with television that he didn’t know about? He was about to ask him when Dirk spoke in a really low voice Todd almost missed it.

“Sure, the TV... that is the square thing, right?” The ashamed tone in his voice made Todd’s lips curl up.

“You don’t know what a TV is?”

From all the things Dirk told him since they met, that was the most unbelievable he heard. Dirk ducked his head and babbled something ridiculous about vampires being antiquated and not having time for nowadays things.

Todd left his food out of danger before taking Dirk to the couch. He took the TV remote and turned it on. Dirk’s eyes opened by surprised―Todd thought he even gasped―as the image of some Spanish soap opera appeared in the screen. Todd changed the channel till he found one where the most popular movies were always on. Now, The Hunger Games was just starting.

“How did you get that video?” Dirk asked, his voice filled in curiosity as his eyes couldn’t leave the image of Katniss throwing an arrow to the woods.

“That is a movie. Is when someone records the footage of some people telling a story and then sells it so other people can watch it.” He gave Dirk the TV remote. Dirk stared at it before taking it, turning the volume up and down and investigating the controls.

“And the people in there agreed to be on the ‘TV’?” he asked, his blue eyes looking for answers in Todd.

“They-they’re not real Dirk.”

“Of course they are, Todd, they’re right there,” he pointed to the screen.

Todd couldn't believe what he was hearing.

“No,” he laughed, “they are actors. Is people that feign being someone to re-enact a story. That’s how movies and TV shows are made.”

Dirk gave him an “ohh” before returning his attention to the movie. Todd came back to the kitchen, paying the deserved attention to his food. And yet, he did have some fun hearing Dirk’s first experience with technology from the other room, as some ‘ooh’s and ‘ahh’s escaped from his mouth. He couldn’t explain that bubbling feeling he had inside every time he heard him, but it was indeed kind of endearing.

After his dinner was done and he could seat to eat, Dirk joined him to tell him what happened in the movie. Even if Todd had already watched it, he let him go on because the excitement he showed while telling the plot made it worth the repetition.

However, what he did notice too was Dirk’s furtive glances at his food before returning to his eyes, which made him wonder when was the last time Dirk ate something.

Or if he ate at all.

“Dirk, sorry to interrupt you, but what do you eat?”

He stayed with his mouth hanging open before answering, “I don’t really eat. Not food, at least…”

Todd realised his mistake too late, trying to apologize for his bad memory. Dirk dismissed with a wave of his hand.

“I wasn't talking about blood, I am more of a vegan vampire.”

“A vegan vampire?” Todd gave him a disconcerted look, “How can you substitute that?”

“Right, prepare yourself for this conversation because after a long time I discovered most people are completely oblivious about this,” Dirk leaned in on the table and pointed at him with his finger, “but did you know that coconuts have the same vitamins on its milk as humans have in their blood? Is like some natural complement!”

“So you suck coconuts to live?” he teased him with a delighted tone.

“Ok, on first place, phrased it that way that sounds utterly disgusting,” he claimed with a sassy attitude that made Todd smirk. “And in second place, what would you prefer? Me putting my mouth on your neck and sucking you?”

“Well, phrased it that way, it sounds even more disgusting.”

Dirk rolled his eyes. Todd noticed he did it the same way he used to do it. Saying it didn't make him feel something would be considered a lie.

“However, it's just really weird. I don’t need to eat real food but every time I see it I can’t help but fancy a bite.” He shrugged.

“And have you ever tried to eat after…?”

“After being turned?” he thoughtfully glanced at the ceiling. “Not that I remember. I don’t need to, so I never thought of it.”

“Would you like to try?” he offered him a piece of meat.

Todd knew Dirk was already pale, and that he didn’t have blood, but if he had, his face would have turned white in that instant. He stared at the fork as if Todd was offering him poison. Todd thought he was going to decline it and even prepared an apology when the Brit took the fork and put it inside his mouth without a second thought. Dirk shut down his eyes and wrinkled his nose, which was an expression funny enough for Todd to wish having a camera. But it couldn't be that bad, as he turned his thumbs up after swallowing it.

But soon Todd discovered what being friends meant, and that was honesty, a word Todd wasn’t really fond of. One of those pleasant nights they spent together, the two men were hanging out at Todd’s living room. The chat wasn’t about anything unusual, Todd was telling an anecdote of a family trip, back to when he was twelve, where they almost got trapped in the middle of the mountain for the stupid pancakes they wanted to eat. After the last laugh died in their lips and the fuzziness installed in his brain, Todd saw Dirk’s brows drew together. He gave Todd a cautious look before talking.

“I have a question that might be strange or not depending on the answer, but why don’t you ever talk about your family?”

Todd felt the colour run away from his face and did the best to sound casual as he answered.

“What do you mean? I just told you about them.”

“Well, yes, in theory,” he rolled his eyes in a gesture that reminded Todd a lot of himself, “but all your stories are from the time you were a child. I get that you and Amanda have this kind of unspoken war but… your parents? I don’t know anything about them from now and…”

He stopped mid-sentence to open wide his eyes as well as his mouth. The next time he spoke he stuttered making it really hard for Todd to get at least one of the words Dirk was trying to say. Seeing he wasn’t really getting anything out, he forced himself to stopped himself and start again. Todd realized this was something Dirk often did when even he couldn’t understand his own rambling.

“Please tell me they are not dead.”

“What? They-no!” he shook his head. Dirk seemed to breathe again. “They are pretty alive, they just… can’t talk to me.”

Todd tried to say it in a dismissive way, making it clear he didn’t want to talk about the subject. However, that didn’t stop Dirk from making all his curious theories.

“Why? Did they move to another house and forgot your number?” He snapped his fingers, “They surely have misplaced it, I always lose stuff when I’m on the street so perhaps the reason why they can’t contact you is a paper with your phone lost on the street! If we go to the place I assure you that I could…”

“They can’t talk to me because they don’t want to,” Todd snapped back.

Dirk seemed perplex, as if he had missed a point in the story.

“But… you are their son,” he stated the obvious.

“I’ve made a mistake… sort of.”

“Everyone makes mistakes. The other day I saw a man giving salad to his dogs, do you understand how wrong that must be for them?”

Todd tried to fix his gaze on something that wasn’t Dirk. Was he about to tell him that part of his life? The one he wanted so desperately to bury under layers and layers of dirt and never see again? Yet, Dirk had already told him about his past…

“Have you ever wondered how I learned to play the guitar?”

The silence that followed the question told him Dirk was as lost as before, if not more. He took a deep breath.

“My dad taught me. He said I got talent inside me. I remember how many nights I spent playing around with the guitar, learning new chords, later learning new songs… I wanted so desperately to be a rock star like those I’d seen in the TV.”

A thousand hours of notes and music came to Todd’s head. The memories of the little concerts he gave to his sister and how he inspired her to learn to play the drums too.

“I always wanted to be in a band, and that opportunity presented to me when I was at University,” he went on with a steady voice. “I didn’t like studying, not really. And the music was everything to me… So I decided to drop out and live the life I wanted.”

He took an act of bravery and looked back at Dirk, who looked like he was paying attention to every word that could came out of his mouth.

“But I couldn’t afford it. The life on the road is expensive, you know? And I wanted that money so bad, I felt like I had to do something.”

“And what did you do?” Dirk questioned, eyebrows knitted together, eyes shining with curiosity. Todd gulped.

“Do you remember the illness that I told you runs through my family? I told them I had it. I can remember how my mom cried on the phone when I said it….”

The ghost of his mother’s sobs sounded in the back of his brain. Todd couldn’t even glance at Dirk. He told him about the band, and how he tried to turn their parents against them so the lie would last longer. He told him about the moment when Amanda got sick. Todd remembered everything of it. The uncountable days of traveling on a dirty van, the sound of loud punk music pumping on his ears. And later, the crying. His sister telling him with a shaky voice through the phone about her first attack, Amanda’s tears as bad as Todd’s, his heart breaking for the guilt.

“I wanted to help her then. With my money from several works, the money I had left from our parents… but it wasn’t enough. And there was a moment when I had no money left. The guys and I bought some speakers and new instruments for the band. And I knew back then it wouldn’t go anywhere. We were doing it for fun, so I thought it wouldn’t matter if I sold them. Apparently it did. My friends discovered it and they hated it. We splitted up, the band ended, and I had no friends left.”

Todd expected Dirk to react as the rest of the people. Cutting their friendship off, saying he was an asshole (which he already knew, thank you very much), leaving him too. But he didn’t do anything of that. Instead, Dirk got closer and awkwardly patted his shoulder. He wasn’t that good with physical contact, but the intention behind his actions was clear.

“It’s okay.”

“No it’s not,” he shook his head. His eyes began to itch. “Dirk I am a bad person. I lied. I stole. And to nothing less than my family and friends.”

“So? I said it, everyone makes mistakes.”

“No, Dirk. Misplacing your keys is a mistake. Trashing the wrong food is a mistake. Calling your teacher ‘Mom’ when you are in elementary school is a fucking mistake. Lying and stealing it’s not!”

He didn’t notice the exact moment he stood up, he just knew that at some point Dirk’s eyes were lower than his. The vampire left his crouching position and stood up awkwardly in front of him.

“I know what I am talking about.” Dirk gave him an exasperated look, “Todd do you really think that people go through life without messing up at least once?”

“Like I did?”

“And worse! Everyone has a burden to live with. Maybe they did it when they were ten,  maybe they did it at the age of fifteen, or maybe they wouldn’t do it until their forty years old. My point is, no one gets out of this life completely clean. Not even the best person. Look, I myself have made terrible mistakes before thinking to do things right. But that doesn’t mean that I have to be alone” he finished in a small voice.

“What do you mean with that?”

Dirk looked down nervously at the floor without meeting Todd’s gaze again.

“That I don’t think I’m the only who haven’t had a real friend in a long time.”

“That’s not true,” Todd crossed his arms avoiding Dirk’s look.

He wasn’t the reason why people had problems connecting with him, Dirk had to be wrong. And he had friends, his coworkers were very nice to him. Although to consider them his friends he knew pretty much anything about them besides their names.

God, he didn’t even know his surnames.

“Of course it is!” he took him by his shoulders. “The problem is that you’ve got this stupid idea that the worst mistake you’ve made in your past defines what you are in the present, and that, my friend, is the lie. You must stop isolating yourself, stop letting life drag you around for something you can’t change!”

Maybe it was for the reflection in Dirk’s eyes that made them shine in a clear shade of blue, perhaps it has something to do with the hope in his voice, but something on Dirk’s speech was starting to convince Todd he was saying the truth. He thought he had to say something, but with his dry mouth, his breath and words got stuck in his throat.

“You might think that you’re an asshole, that you don’t deserve people being close to you, but you are not a bad person. Todd, you’re one of the best persons I’ve ever met in my life.” Dirk’s dreamy voice reflected in his face, the care painted in each faction. “So, what are you going to do? Are you going to let them drown you, or are you going to raise and be the person you have to be?”

Dirk had his lips pressed into a light smile. He wanted to hug him, and without letting himself think about it, he left the guitar at his side and wrapped Dirk’s body with his arms without a second thought. He froze in his place, his arms rigid against Todd’s body, his right hand still on Todd’s shoulder. He was even holding his breath.

“What are you doing?” the sound came strangled from his throat.

“I’m hugging you, idiot,” he replied nervously. “I would appreciate if you did the same, you know?”

Slowly, Dirk left his iceberg position and tried to imitate Todd. It was awkward at first, but Dirk began to relax after a few seconds to give in completely to the hug. Todd didn't feel the heat coming out of Dirk’s body, he was indeed pretty cold, but that didn't mean he couldn't feel the strength with which he hugged him. Todd felt in his chest a warm sensation that made him feel he was doing exactly what he was meant to do.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “For being here, I mean.”

“Don’t mention it.”

And maybe it was the Universe not letting him enjoy the good things in his life, but he casually decided to look the clock on the wall. It read 12 pm.

"Shit," Todd pulled away leaving Dirk somewhat disoriented. “Look, I don’t wanna be _that_ kind of person, but I need to work tomorrow and it’s getting late so…”

He hoped the unspoken suggestion would get this time to Dirk. Fortunately it did.

“It’s okay. See you tomorrow, Todd,” he smiled to him and walked right to the window.

“Hang a second,” he stopped him before Dirk got to step outside the window. “I never asked but… where do you go after you leave?”

“Oh, nowhere special,” he assured him sweeping the air with his hand. “I just stay around.”

“What do you mean with ‘staying around’?” Todd frowned. Did he really hanged around the streets at that time of the night?

“Well, it depends. Any place that doesn't leave me exposed is fine, I guess, so as long as I have a roof or tree to stay under, anywhere is an alright option. Why the interest?”

Todd was speechless. During the time they had been seeing each other it had never occurred to him to ask where Dirk spent the nights, and he resulted being homeless. Actually, he didn’t know what he expected. That he had a home? Obviously that wasn’t an option for him, or at least it was a very difficult one. How would he do when it started snowing?

“How can you live that way?”

Dirk didn’t seem to mind or he wasn’t truly aware of the implications about it.

“I mean, it’s not a big deal. Sometimes I can even get some heat from the lampposts on the park so it isn’t like I freeze in the night.”

Todd couldn’t make him leave now. He shook his head before closing the window, which made him get a complaint from his friend

“It would be better if you had somewhere to stay.”

Dirk snorted, “Sure, where then?”

“Why not here? I live alone, I work most of the day, you won’t even notice you’re living with someone else.”

As a reply Dirk stuttered incoherent sentences Todd couldn’t interpret. It took him a minute of non-sense tries before stopping and saying, “Are you implying… that you would like me to… stay here tonight?”

He said it with a puzzled tone, which made Todd’s heart hurt a little bit.

“I was thinking in letting you live here, but yeah, if you’re comfortable with it we could be flatmates.”

Dirk was watching him in a way that made Todd feel uncomfortable. He had offered him to stay because he felt it was what he had to do. He was Dirk’s friend after all, right? And yet, Dirk seemed to see it in other way. His eyes were open wide, eyebrows raised, like it was the best thing someone ever did for him, which made him wonder how many people have actually cared about him. In his own words, he had always been alone.

Dirk changed his expression and throw himself in the couch.

“Hmm... I guess I  will sleep here tonight.”

 

* * *

 

On the following months, Todd tried his best to live with this new motivation: believing he could do better. He started with his co-workers. After years of ignoring him or caring the least possible about them besides trivial comments on their break and funny anecdotes about the weekend, he started to make conversation with them and invest time in getting to know all four of them. Eventually, he even let Dirk alone at home to go and hang out with his new friends―which the Brit was ecstatic about. Things with Dirk also got a lot easier since he tried this new perspective. All the double-thinking, doubts and fear of misstep were erased, and now Todd felt he could act freely with him. Sarcastic comments and rolling eyes were getting more common and Dirk seemed to catch quickly the real meaning of them. In a short time, weird or confused faces were replaced by wiggling eyebrows and amused smiles.

Moving with Dirk was a good decision too. Now, with another presence in the apartment, Todd didn’t feel alone at all. When he cooked, there would be a humming coming from the living room. There was another laugh ringing along the sound of a comedy film during free weekends. And on the nights Todd couldn’t sleep, the weak snoring coming from the other side of the door would comfort him in a way he didn’t expected.

However, that didn’t mean there wasn’t a bad side of it. With all the time they started to spend together, Todd also got to know the bad things about Dirk. For starters, the man seemed to lack even the most basic survival sense. After a few kitchen incidents in which they had to trash half of the food on the fridge and clean all the floor covered in strange substances, he discovered Dirk couldn’t cook, not even to save his own life. And following the groceries incident they agreed to never talk again involving a pair of coconuts and an angry employer screaming in the middle of the fruit aisle, it was more than clear that Todd would have to take care of that too. In his defense, he picked up the cleaning skill in no time. Problems like this though would lead to different discussions, during between an hour to a whole day. But this didn’t mean they had only bad moments. There were days that from only remembering them a smile was cast on his face. One of them was the one they would recall as “The Bar Night”.

After some lonely holidays, in a particular nigh in the middle of January, both friends had no more ideas of how to entertain themselves. It was one of those days were nothing on the TV was good enough and the cold on the outside erased any thought of an outdoor activity. The conversation was already dead, no matter how long they kept it going on.

“This is officially not working,” Dirk abruptly said before sliding down from the couch to the floor.

Todd couldn’t say he didn’t agree with him. His sight wandered to the window. Being in the middle of winter, there was snow gathering on the streets, decorating with its white tone the dark atmosphere his neighbourhood offered.

“We never go outside.”

Dirk stopped complaining and lifted his head, “What do you mean?”

“We never hanged out outside of our apartment,” he looked back inside. “What we do since you moved here is the same we did when you came every night, but we never do something different.”

“Well,” Dirk stood up and took a bright blue jacket, “we could fix that right now.”

In those two months, Dirk had acquired some new pieces of clothing with the money Todd lent him only to prove him that his strange taste wasn't product of a lack of funds. And one of the things Dirk bought the most were leather jackets, exactly the same as his old yellow jacket but in blue, green and red. And if that wasn’t weird enough, Todd found himself actually liking them.

“But Dirk you’re a-”

“-vampire. Yes, I know, but that means that I burst into flames in the sun, not that I’m allergic to oxygen. So take a jacket,” Dirk threw him one from the hanger, “and let’s go somewhere we could have fun.”

Outside, the chill wind sneaked in between his clothes, cutting to the bone and making Todd want to abort the mission. Obviously this wasn’t a problem for Dirk, the guy itself was like made of marble. While Todd walked with his arms crossed over his chest and with cheeks and nose coloured red, Dirk enthusiastically moved through the cold, glancing oblivious of the weather at every direction. Todd sighed. If that made him happy…

“So,” Dirk interrupted his thoughts, “what could we do around here? I don’t want to make you walk too much or you will turn into an angry popsicle.”

“There’s a new bar like three streets away,” he told him suppressing a smile. “It opened a week ago, so there can’t be so many people in there.”

Luckily, his prediction was right. There were a few tables with big guys who probably owned a motorbike and a lot of leather drinking some beers, but besides them and two couples, the place was empty. They ordered quickly and got a comfortable booth near the heating. His cold hands were very grateful for that. After their drinks came, Todd noticed Dirk inspected carefully his glass.

“Um Dirk, just to remind you, if you’re uncomfortable with any of this or if you want to drink something else, say it. We can order something else.”

He tried to say it with a reassuring tone, but something on Dirk’s expression made it seem as if Todd would’ve nailed him a dagger.

“You think I’m light weighted.”

That wasn’t a question, it was more like an accusation. Todd shrugged.

“I’m sorry if this surprises you, _friend_ , but I have seen alcohol before and let me tell you a secret: I’m even good at drinking.”

And to Todd's surprise, he downed the entire glass in one gulp.

After several rounds like this, with Todd already feeling a little tipsy and Dirk feeling like a fish in the water, they tried to calm down for the human’s sake. Todd saw his flatmate drink the last drop from his glass and put it aside with the others, returning to their chatting. But to be honest, it was more of Dirk doing the whole chat while Todd stayed there with his mind in the load of things he knew Dirk could and couldn’t do. It certainly surprised him that the man could, for example, hold a heavy wardrobe that Todd could barely move, but he couldn’t manage through something as simple as buying food. That led him to interrupt whatever Dirk was talking about to ask the damn question that’s been hanging on his head for a while.

“How is that you can do all this incredible stuff?”

Dirk threw a puzzled look at him. The question seemed to take him off guard as his hands started to fidget with the dirty tablecloth.

“Wait what kind of- do you mean-like, me? Or maybe…” Dirk’s tongue got problems to say a complete sentence. Before he could misinterpret it, Todd corrected himself.

“I mean, I’ve seen you drink six glasses full to the top of beer and you’re not nearly as drunk as I would’ve been.”

Dirk made and “oh” with his mouth. It didn’t scape to Todd’s eyes the relief on his face, but this was mixed with something Todd wasn’t sure if he knew what it meant. It was dangerously similar to disappointment.

“There is something called alcohol in England too, Todd,” he excused himself with a confident tone. "It's not like I never tried it before.”

“I noticed,” Todd gave a wide-eyed look at the empty recipients. “But there are TVs in England too and yet you didn’t know what that was.”

 Dirk gaped before answering, “That’s for a totally different reason.”

In the fog that was his mind, the words came out of Todd’s mouth before thinking about their meaning.

“Has it something to do with you being a vampire?”

The sounds stopped for a second and Todd feared he had made a mistake.

“Sorry, my bad, we can change the subject if it bothers you…”

“Bother me?” Dirk quirked his eyebrows and giggled. “If there’s something that could bother me is you treating me like I have a disease. Todd, I’m a vampire, I don’t have AIDS.”

Todd laughed along with him, and while doing so, he became aware of how small the booth was. Or were they just really close? The only thing he was sure was that he could feel Dirk’s leg rubbing his from time to time. And for his surprise, it didn’t bother him at all.

When they finally calmed down, Dirk continued with his explanation.

“Actually it was more related with how I was turned.” He spoke in a low voice, letting it only be heard by his companion. In the background, strident laughs and glasses impacting between each other filled the air. “It all started in the place where I was born. There were a lot of vampire stories around there…”

“Wait, do you mean, in England?”

Now Dirk seemed confused, “Why England? I was born in Romania.”

“No way,” he lifted an eyebrow. “So you’re not British?”

“What would make you think that?” Dirk replied in the most British tone Todd has ever heard in his fucking life.

“Oh, nothing at all, just an assumption,” he mumbled.

Dirk ignored him completely.

“As I said before, in my hometown the vampire stories were something very popular. As you may know, as the horror nerd you are, Transylvania has its fame for them. But around the time I was six, the legends got pretty real.

“A group that called themselves Blackwing emerged by that time with only one objective in mind:  Creating the greatest clan of vampires of all history. According to what they said, Dracula was going to be a kids story after they were done with their plan. They started to assault at night. Any house was safe from them. In one week they got 12 children to educate them to be the future of their people. I was there. They thought the best way to create this bloodsucker legion from their dreams was taking us to the basement of a house in the outskirts of England and teach us _how_ to become a real vampire.

“Because it’s not how they make you think it works. I wish it was as simple as ‘be bitten, rise from the dead, end’, but reborn takes a lot of effort. To be a vampire you have to be strong enough to _bear dying._ They made us do forced tasks for so many years just to wait until the final ceremony. They hit us, torture us, one time I think I even received an electric stimulus to help with that. They kept us away from society for fourteen years, always at the edge of dying just so we could be worthy of being like them. It was… a real nightmare.”

The rage on Dirk’s voice was clearer that the crystal from the glass his hands were squeezing. His eyes darkened like Todd never saw before. He was afraid of asking for something maybe Dirk didn’t want to share yet. But even if he tried it wouldn’t have worked, as Dirk recovered from it with a quick blink.

“And I only could escape the night of the turn. Sixteen years ago. I changed my name, disappeared and never joined to civilization until now.”

The absent look on his face meant the story time ended. Todd couldn’t imagine how someone could do that to _kids_. And nothing less than children who would end up like Dirk. He might not be normal, but he was also one of the people Todd had found most honest and friendly with the rest of the world.

“They really did all of that to you?” Todd’s voice softened, unlike the grip he held of Dirk’s hand. The vampire followed that movement with his gaze before turning it up again. “Almost killing you?”

“I’d like to say it wasn’t that bad, but yeah, something like that” the contrast between the reality of his words and the tone in which he said them made Todd’s heart ache a bit more.

“This doesn’t sound good at all,” Todd shook his head. “If I got any of those assholes somehow close to us I would-”

But he was interrupted by his buzzing phone, right next to their conjoined hands. Falling suddenly into perspective of how that would look, he broke the contact by taking his phone and clearing his throat. This made an effect on Dirk too, because his friend suddenly found the pattern on the tiling very interesting. However, his mood down at the sight of his sister name on the screen. He hanged the call, but it wasn’t fast enough to avoid Dirk’s curious look from seeing what he did.

“There’s something I don’t understand.”

“Shoot,” he answered simply. His hand felt a little empty now.

“For all the stories you’ve told me, Amanda and you were very close.” The shame from the last moment seemed to have disappeared. “What changed?”

“You know exactly what changed,” Todd leaned in closer in the table. He didn’t notice though how Dirk gulped and put some distance between them. “She lied to me.”

“And?” Dirk’s eyebrows raised with indifference.

“That it was something bad ?” Todd frowned at him. He was starting to feel nervous.

“But why don’t you just talk to her and fix it all?”

“I can’t…”

“Of course you can, it’s totally easy. It just takes a call.”

“The problem is that I can’t because I don’t want to.” Todd avoided his look.

Dirk blinked twice, his brain trying to understand those words.

“Excuse me but that doesn’t make sense at all,” he shook his head. “If you love her that much, why let your relationship ruin like that?”

He didn’t want to answer. His behaviour improved so much recently, and he didn’t want to go back to what he was before. But that damn thought was still there, eating his brain every time he went to sleep at night.

“Because I think it is what I should do,” he raised his look again, meeting Dirk’s confused eyes, “after what I did to her.”

Dirk stood there, frowning for a second, before finally understanding.

“Oh, please,” he looked at him with sad eyes, disappointment now clear in them, “tell me you’re not doing this because you think you deserve losing your sister.”

“You don’t get it,” he shifted in his seat, uncomfortable. “What I did to her, it wasn’t good. I practically destroyed her.”

“Todd, we talked about it, it was just a lie.”

“But you weren't there!” His voice raised without him noticing. After some bad looks from the other people in the bar, he lowered his tone again. “I was, and you don’t know what I’ve seen. With that lie, I lost her trust. That’s why she lied to me. Yeah, I got angry that day, but I think it was more my brain trying to take out all that guilt. Because after all, whose real fault was?”

“That’s what _you_ think, but have you stopped and wondered why would she try to hide the truth? Why  she lied to you even before she found out about your fake pararibulitis? That is the question you should be asking yourself.” Todd didn’t understand his point. Dirk rolled his eyes with a sigh, “Our world, the unnatural world, it’s not always colours, magic and good people, Todd. Sometimes there are bad guys who only want to attack your weakness. Let me tell you this, family is a big weakness, especially with a bond like yours. She only wanted to protect you.”

“I could’ve protected her too,” he answered defensively.

“No, you couldn’t,” Dirk said in a sad voice. “I understand you, but try to see it from her point of view, would you believe yourself if you said you were a wizard? You didn’t even believe me when I told you I was a vampire, and I had the fangs and all.”

And with a toothy smile, the sharp canines grew on Dirk’s mouth. Todd rolled his eyes.

“But that didn’t stop me from being your friend.”

“And that is what you should prove her,” Dirk pushed Todd’s chest with his finger, “but by staying away you’re doing completely the opposite.”

His eyes gave a nervous look at the phone that was still on the table. Something tightened inside him.

“Hey,” Dirk’s voice called his attention, “only one call won’t do anything.”

Was he ready for that? What would he say? What if Amanda didn’t want to see him and she was calling to fully hate on him? But Dirk’s little smile was the boost of confidence he needed. He sighed in defeat and gave him an annoyed look.

“You promise you won’t get into trouble?”

“Oh do not worry about me,” he gave the human a dismissive wave with his hand followed by a cheerful smile. “You will find me sitting here, perfectly fine.”

Already feeling sorry for doing this, Todd stepped outside of the bar. With cold fingers he marked his sister’s number. The beeping in his ear continued while his eyes tried to focus on the white fog of his breath. He could feel the invisible hand of anxiety closing around his neck and preventing the air going out. Before he could regret making the call, someone picked it up.

“Hi! Todd, hello.” Amanda’s voice was like a familiar wave of heat sending away his insecurities.

“Hello Amanda.”

“You called,” her voice was filled with joy. “And you didn’t hang up this time.”

“Yeah, someone spoke to me about all this matter and I thought it was time to talk.” His eyes went to see Dirk on the bar’s window. He was playing around with the empty glasses with a bored expression under the yellow lightning. “So let’s go straight to the point.”

“That sounds great…and it would be greater if I knew what to say,” she cursed under her breath.

“You’re kidding me right?”

“Hey I never expected getting this far!” Amanda excused herself and he could almost see her lifting her hands up. Todd didn’t know how much he missed her until now.

“And what did you expect to say when you called me five minutes ago?”

“If I have to be honest, Farah convinced me to call you, it wasn’t my choice.”

“Right,” he shook his head with a sight. “Look, this is not what I had in mind…”

“Wait , no, sorry, I’m sorry,” she interrupted him. “I’m thinking in something, wait here-um whatever you do, do not hang up!”

He heard her leaving the phone. Todd felt his fingers freezing while the low voices, not clear enough for him to understand what they were saying, were arguing from the other side of the line. His mind could only think about the heating waiting for him with Dirk back inside. Somehow that helped a little to keep the cold outside of his system.

“I’m back,” her voice had a happier ring, “and I have a perfect idea. You always liked parties, right?”

“Hmm, I guess…”

“Well, I’m throwing one at home for my birthday...” she prompted, leaving the invitation on the air.

“Wait, but that isn't until the next month.”

“Yes, but, a lot of weird people is coming.”

“Define weird people,” he narrowed his eyes.

“Werewolves, witches, some demons...”

“I’m not sure about that,” he hesitated.

“Oh c’mon Todd,” she blew air through her nose. “You said you wanted me to make you part of this side of my life. I am trying to do the right thing with you.”

“Well, yes, but Dirk and I-”

“You and Dirk talk to each other?”

“I would say that we are good friends.”

“I knew you’d like him. And he can come too! He’ll have so much fun.”

It was hard to say no when she put it like that. Maybe it was the few drinks he had before clouding his mind, or maybe he just fucking missed Amanda, but he said yes. She tried to play it cool, but inside him, Todd knew she would be jumping as soon as they ended the call.

When he hanged up, he stepped inside of the bar, welcoming with open arms the warm wave that involved him at his first step. He went straight to their booth to tell Dirk about the conversation and the party they would be attending in two weeks only to find the seats completely empty.

He was wondering where Dirk could be when he saw the bunch of men covered up in leather were all gathering in a circle around someone. Todd was begging for that person not being Dirk, but his hopes jumped out of the window when he heard an unmistakable shriek coming from the circle.

When he made it to see what was happening, he distinguished a tall man, with white spiky hair, grabbing Dirk by his jacket.

“What’s going on here?” he demanded.

“Todd, I don't think it's a good idea...”

“Your friend made a mistake,” the guy looked at him like Todd would look at a cockroach. “He said our gang was stupid.”

Todd forgot the desire of punching Mr. Mean’s face to stare wide-eyed at Dirk in disbelief. From all the people in the world, did he got to get in a fight with a gang?

“That's totally not what I said,” the vampire tried to take the hands off of himself, failing miserably. “What I said, is that the _purpose_ behind the gangs is stupid and pointless…”

The man tightened his grip and dangerously leaned closer to Dirk.

“Which of course now I realise was stupid of me to think,” he corrected stumbling with his own words.

“Guys,” the man spoke to his ‘friends’ without taking his eyes off from Dirk, “why don’t we show this funny Brit how stupid our gang is?”

The three other men closed the circle around them. They were a strange group, in his opinion. While who seemed to be the boss was all white and cold tones, the others had different variations that weren’t in any way similar to the other.

“What do you suggest to do, Martin?” asked one of them with dark skin and a crazy look.

“I don’t know,” answered Mr. Mean, now known as Martin. “What do you think Cross?”

Cross, who had long messy hair and an unusual circle tattoo on his right eye, smiled to himself and said: “Let’s punch him till he’s unconscious.”

“Oh! We can use it as a piñata, right Martin?” hurried to say the younger of the group with an energy Todd could be jealous about.

Seeing how Dirk was about to be killed again by these guys, Todd thought in a way for both of them to come clean out of this situation. Of course, his first idea was to get right in the middle of the fight.

“You’re not going to touch him.”

He put a hand on Dirk’s shoulder and freed him of Martin’s grip. Dirk fell behind him and took him by the arm, getting closer to Todd’s ear.

“What are you doing? They’re going to crush you like an insect!”

“Of course, because you were handling the situation pretty well,” he whispered back.

“Are you sure you wanna mess with us?” Martin narrowed his eyes and got closer to him. Todd’s entire body was asking him to leave immediately.

“If I need to do it, I will.”

Why couldn’t he keep his mouth shut?

The tension was growing in between them, dangerous warnings like red lights in their eyes. He could almost feel the electricity flowing in the little space. Suddenly, Martin broke the look contest turning his head to the side for the punch he got from the left. Dirk held his closed hand squeaking in a high-pitched tone.

“Bloody hell, why is punching someone so hard?”

And with that, the fight started. Martin lunged at Todd, knocking him down instantly. For what he could hear from the floor, the young guy and the scary one caught Dirk, giving him several punches that would leave a mark on his pale skin for a long time.

Todd tried to take his arms out from under Martin’s body, but he was too heavy for him to do so. Someone, who he would later identify as the black man Martin asked for advice before, put his hand on Todd’s shoulders and help him stand while locking his arms behind his back.  Martin lifted the corner of his mouth and proceeded to beat Todd on his stomach.

When he thought they were going to actually punch them to death, a shouting voice made its way through the close circle. A tall Asian man who Todd recognised as the bartender was coming with an enraged expression. He and two other employers kicked them down to the street.

“And don’t come back unless you want me to call the police!”

The guys they were fighting with ran away at the first chance, getting lost from his sight as they went down the road. But with them, the bar employers grabbed them by their clothes and threw him right to the street.

His whole body impacted against the pavement. He yelled a curse a the bar’s owner. At his side, Dirk looked quite odd. His hair was pointing out in many directions, his clothes were untidy, and with that purple circle rounding one of his eyes, his puzzled look resulted even more funny. This had happened because Dirk got involved in a street fight. He had to insult a gang, with guys who were clearly better at kicking asses than them. They got beaten for his incapability of shutting his mouth up. Todd must’ve been angry, at the verge of yelling. But he didn’t do any of that. Instead, he laughed.

“Are you okay?” Dirk got surprised by the sudden sound.

Todd couldn’t answer. He kept cracking up, unable to stop himself. It wasn’t even a normal laugh, it was closer to the hysterical kind. This gained him a more serious look from his companion.

“Right, Todd, I’m very concerned now, are you okay or not?”

Dirk approached him and grabbed his arm trying to steady him. Seeing his behaviour wasn’t helping the situation, Todd tried to calm down and say at least enough words to create a sentence.

“We,” he could talk but there was still a silly tone in his voice, “we suck at this, man.”

Dirk’s eyes went down all Todd’s features, his eyebrows knitted together in confusion, trying to find any sign of his wellbeing.

“We can’t even have a normal night out that we got in a fight. With a gang!” Todd opened his arms at his sides.

Dirk’s hand fell to the floor and his mouth curled up in a smile.

“It seems normal stuff is not our kind.”

“And you insulted them!”

“Oh c’mon, you can’t say that I wasn’t right!” Dirk joined him in his giggles.

“You need to learn as soon as possible what a verbal filter is.”

“Right, and you need to learn how to fight,” Dirk teased him with a goofy smile, “because they hit you like a punching bag.”

“Oh, sure! Because you did very well in there.” Todd shook his head, “What was that first punch anyway? You’re really brave or just really stupid.”

“I’d say a little of both.”

They sat in the cold, laughing uncontrollably at themselves, and Todd thought he wasn’t the only one feeling more alive than in any other moment of his life.

Even when they arrived at their home, the muffled laughter had not ended. Laying on his bed, with his eyes fix on the ceiling, Todd couldn’t stop reliving the last events over and over again on his head. Only that kept him awake for a long time, with the imperturbable silence floating in the air. Or that was until an hour on the morning when he heard a whimpering coming from the living room. At first he thought he imagined it, product of the tiredness of the night finally weighting on him, but after the second time he knew it was real.

Todd walked in the room and went straight to the couch where Dirk was sleeping. In effect, he was the one making the sounds. His forehead was wet in sweat. His eyes looked in many directions under the eyelids, followed by sporadic movements of Dirk’s arms. Although he wasn’t saying any word, his lips moved to the rhythm of whatever was going on inside of his head. Dirk’s contorted expression was enough for Todd to know he was having a nightmare. He tried to wake him up by slightly shaking his shoulder. Nothing.

“Dirk,” he called him.

Again, there was no response. He called his name and shook him a little more, but Dirk was too deep in his dream for Todd to reach him. He tried to think in another way to awake him when he felt a crushing grip in his arm. Dirk was wide-eyed and panting, looking everywhere as if he felt lost in where he was.

“Dirk? Dirk, are you alright?”

That seemed to bring him back to Earth. Dirk locked his wet eyes with Todd’s for a second and calmed his breathing. He nodded.

“Are you sure? You seem pretty nervous.”

Todd put a hand on his back and helped him to sit down. Although Dirk seemed to feel better than the first moments, he still looked bad. Some tears fell from his eyes down his cheeks, and he still couldn’t look at any fixed point. His hands were trembling a bit, even if Dirk had them closed in fists to precisely avoid it. Todd was concerned about him. What could he see on that dream to make him react like this? After a minute or so, in which Dirk didn’t say a word about the matter, Todd went for a glass of water.

“I know you don’t need it, but it helps me to get calm when I’m upset or something.”

Dirk received it with a brief ‘thank you’. Todd waited until he finished it, hoping he would say something about the situation, but apparently Dirk didn’t have any intention in doing so.

“Do you wanna talk about what happened?” Todd spoke softly.

“It was just a nightmare,” he answered in a small voice.

“Well, yeah, I thought so, but what was it about?”

Silence. Todd sighed.

“I’m not going to let you deal with whatever shit you got locked inside. But to help you I must know what's going on.”

His eyes were still crystallized, his hair laid damp against his forehead. Dirk always got a weird look but that night he seemed _sick_.

Todd felt the need of doing something, the need of bringing back the Dirk he got to know instead of this broken version of him. He rested a hand on his shoulder, bringing Dirk’s attention to that movement instead of the alternative universe his mind was on. In the span of a second, he was hugging Todd. He hadn't seen it coming, it went too fast for him to anticipate him, but the next he felt were Dirk’s arms around her neck and a trembling mouth against his shoulder.

“Sorry, but it's easier to talk if I don’t have to look at your face...”

“Whatever you need,” he said, embracing the vampire as well while taking a deep breath.

Something cracked inside him. Dirk was crying. Legit, authentic tears falling from his eyes silently in the try of not startling him. It was real, but it wasn't supposed to.

“You remember I told you about my childhood?”

The soft voice coming from his back sounded fragile. Todd tightened his grip, “Yeah.”

“There’s something I haven't mentioned.” A pause, a deep breath. “There was a man. I never knew his name, but everyone knew how to call him: Mr. Priest. He was the one to train us. He wasn't a vampire at all; in fact, he was a hunter, but he wanted to be one of us and Blackwing promised him a part in The Turn if he helped them. He almost killed us more than once. Mr. Priest wouldn't stop until we bleed right in front of him. We weren’t persons, we weren’t humans, we were just garbage he had to take care of. Our days based on surviving every day to being in the verge of dying…”

Todd’s body tried to comfort Dirk by keeping him close, rubbing a hand on his back as a way to offer him some kind of relief. But Todd’s mind was a completely different world. The rage took space in there, imagining a situation in which he could find that man and make him pay for what he did in the past. For what Dirk told him in the bar, his experience with Blackwing sounded already traumatic, but adding this, it felt like real hell.

“But besides that, there’s something more I hid.” He gulped, and when he spoke again, his voice was trembling. “he night I was turned, the night I escaped… I did something terrible. Something I am completely ashamed of to say out loud. But they hated me for that. I did the only thing that they could never forgive.”

The curiosity was burning inside him but Todd remained cautious of not letting it go out of his mouth. Dirk sighed deeply, making Todd’s heart squeeze inside.

“I killed a man.” His voice lacked any emotion. “Trying to escape. So they acted, and very quickly I must say. They told Priest to haunt me,” his voice broke right there, “and bring them my head on a stick.”

“What?”

He couldn’t believe it. Of course the guy would wake up in the middle of the night with a burden like that.

“That’s why you never settled down, right?” Todd put some space between them to be able to see him. “Why you always kept moving?”

He nodded. “I know this is… somewhat heavy. I don’t really like to tell this stuff, but it just keeps scaring me. Having to look over my shoulder at every step I make. And telling you all the story brought some memories, so…”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” he stopped him. “I would be terrified too, but now you don’t have to. You don’t have to run anymore, you’re not alone. You have me.”

The silence settled in the room because words were not needed anymore. It took only a new hug, a hug filled with unspoken words of gratitude and unspoken feelings to be discovered. But suddenly, for Todd, those feelings became crystal clear. Because with that small act, an endearing wave washed over him turning the page to a new chapter in his and Dirk’s story.

 

* * *

 

Over the next few weeks, Todd noticed some strange attitudes coming from him.

He felt the sudden urge to stop whatever he was doing and dedicate several seconds to look at Dirk. No, not just look, _stare_. He could be watching TV with him and out of nowhere, his eyes would wander to his side where the vampire was sit. Or maybe they ―mostly him― were eating, and while Dirk went on with the conversation they were having, Todd would miss a part of it because his mind was too busy focusing on the way his mouth moved. Any small movement coming from his friend could call Todd’s attention, and he was starting to get annoyed by it, since he couldn’t understand where the need came from.

Another thing he noticed, was how conscious he was about Dirk’s presence. He could be minding his own business, but even without looking at him Todd could feel every move he made. It was like a constant reminder of where Dirk was, what was he doing and how he was doing so as he danced around Todd's figure all the day.

Also, details he hadn’t notice started to appear as if it was the first time he saw Dirk’s face. His eyes used to show a thousand emotions in the span of a second, but now Todd noticed how truly expressive they were. Even if he didn’t pay attention to the rest of Dirk’s face, his eyes let him know exactly what was going through his mind in that precise instant. It was like having a book telling him exactly what he needed to know about what was inside of him. And his lips, always moving a hundred words per second… Todd never paid attention to them when they were still. If he had before, he would’ve noticed how even when they weren’t saying anything they let see a lot of things words cannot even try to communicate. In his smiles, that made Todd want to imitate him; in his expressions, always exact, always precise to whatever situation they were going through at the moment; and his laughs, the perfect frame to so peculiar sound. The one he would overlook so many times before, now couldn’t leave his mind.

Todd was convinced he was going crazy.

And Dirk wasn’t precisely helping to his situation. He somehow had the ability to create scenarios where his mind ended more confused than before. For example, one day they were cleaning the apartment. Since it was one of the few chores Dirk could develop without needing Todd following him from behind with a bucket, they took an entire day once a week to make their place not look like a dump. To avoid boredom, they always kept the TV on as background music. That day, they left it in a channel where people were doing a dance competition. Dirk got distracted every time a new couple went on stage and Todd needed to remind him what they were doing so he didn’t drop the chore at that instant. But at some point, Dirk seemed to be hypnotized by the dance, as even when Todd called his name several times, he didn’t answer once. Defeated, Todd had sighed and gave a look at the screen. A woman and a man were dancing tango with very flashy clothes in red tones moving around in perfect tune with each other. His eyes went to his flatmate’s face. It was lit and a dorky smile was taking place in his lips. Without being conscious about it, Todd’s own lips curved into a smile too.

“We gotta do that,” Dirk said out of nowhere, almost making Todd jump in his place.

“What are you talking about?”

“The dancing,” he seemed pretty excited. “We can do that too.”

“Dirk, we’re at the middle of something here.”

“Ohhh, c’mon, it must be funnier than cleaning.”

He was making what Todd like to call the “wet puppy face”, because it reminded him of those animals when they looked at you on the middle of the rain begging you to take them home. He found very hard saying no to that face, and he was starting to suspect that Dirk knew this, because when he agreed to his little game, the cheerful attitude stroke back as fast as it had disappeared.

“Now, how do you suggest that we do this?” Todd asked, giving up.

“A competition.”

Todd stood there with a puzzled look.

“But we’re only two.”

“Yes,” he admitted without losing the smile.

“And it takes two to dance.”

“Well, I noticed, Todd, that’s why I asked you to do this instead of doing it by myself,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Then how are we going to do this if there’s only the two of us?”

“Easy!” he exclaimed. “We’re going to dance and the loser gives the winner a prize.”

“But we don’t have a prize,” he stated the obvious.

“Yes we do, we still have that marshmallows bag, right?”

“Yeah, but I don’t see how…”

“Then let’s start!”

Without asking, Dirk grabbed Todd by the hand and pulled him close to his body until there was practically no distance between them. Following the figures on the TV, he rested his hand on Todd’s back and made him do the same. When they finally were ready, they started to ‘dance’. With clumsy steps, Dirk directed Todd by moving forward, forward, forward, left. Forward, forward, forward right. Dancing between the furniture, and doing the best they could, they easily got the rhythm and started to move without having to look at the competition. It was a mess, but a typical Dirk-funny kind of mess, and Todd couldn’t say he wasn’t enjoying it. There was a lightness in the whole situation that made him feel like a child: laughing stupidly at their own attempts and every mistake they made, not caring anymore in following the original choreography.

In one of their weird twists, he felt his left foot get hooked in the leg of the couch, and losing the balance he made both of them fall over said piece of furniture. After the initial shock, he got overwhelmed by different things. First of all, Dirk. Since he was following Todd, at the moment of the fall, he had also fallen with him, which resulted in his body being completely pressed over his. He had his face, closer than ever, panting with a silly smile at centimeters of his own. And now that he found it right in front of him, he noticed that this distance was perfect to observe each one of his features. But what also alarmed him was the obnoxiously fast pace of his heart, apparently with desires of going out of his chest by how hard he was hitting against it. He could almost feel the beating on his throat, which had a lot of space since his breath abandoned him at the very moment. Dirk’s eyes took its time going down Todd’s face, his friend’s mind probably thinking about the awkward moment as Todd thought he was.

“So that means I win,” he smiled with those thin lips Todd couldn’t stop following.

“What?”

This brought him back to reality. Dirk quickly stood up and went straight to the kitchen, Todd following behind.

“You tripped over, so you lost,” he explained with his head already in the fridge. “So that means I won.”

“I don’t know how you think a competition works, but let me tell you is not like this,” he stayed with his arms crossed over his chest and a half smile on his face.

“You say that because you’re the loser,” he smiled back. “By the way, the red suits you.”

“What do you mean?”

Now he felt his face heating up.

“In your cheeks,” he pointed at him. “I think it looks lovely.”

And just like that he left with his prize leaving Todd standing agape in the middle of the kitchen.

Todd was circling around that memory on his way back from work. His mind has became a mess while trying to put some order to thousands of thoughts, and yet he couldn't solve the mystery about the file on his brain tagged ‘Dirk Gently’. Of course he had some ideas to explain the meaning behind his ultimate actions, but none that he could say out loud, even less to him. Even if he tried, all day and part of the night, he couldn't find another reason that could fit as perfectly as the completely impossible theory he’d made before.

Because it couldn't be _that_. It wasn't fair. What they built was something Todd never thought he would get, it was too beautiful to be ruined in a so selfish way. But it was true that the evidence was there, too clear to anyone wanting to read it.

He felt like a genuine coward. He couldn't admit it, not even in his mind where he was the only one hearing his thoughts. And he was about to start again the vicious circle when he felt something extremely soft rubbing against his leg. He lowered his gaze to find a pair of small green eyes looking back at him. A little ball of black fur was meowing in his direction. With their head tilted to the left and big round eyes full of curiosity, he couldn't help but think in somebody else.

After looking for a plate with no results, he took the cat on his hand and decided to take it home with him. It fitted in Todd’s arm. Inside, he was already laughing at Dirk’s possible expression when he first saw it. Except he didn’t notice. Once he opened the door as always, Dirk started with his usual chattery without even looking at him. Todd couldn’t believe him. He left his coat in the couch and closed the door. On the screen of the TV there was a program with a spaceship in it.

“...and I was really bored, as you can see,  so I turned the TV to see a channel called Discovery-something and do you know what I saw?” He made a dramatic pause, “Aliens!”

“Dirk…” Todd tried to call him.

“Some people say they are completely fake, but I don’t think so. There are pictures, Todd, pictures!!”

“Dirk,” he said louder.

“And that ‘photoshoop’ thing? That sounds like the fake thing to me. How could you manage to change a complete image or create something it’s not there?” He gasped, freezing for a second, “Unless it’s magic. Todd can aliens be product of magic?”

“Dirk!”

“Wha-Oh my God is that a kitten?”

Passing him by, Dirk took the animal from his hands and started stroking it everywhere.

“Is that the attention you pay to me when I come back from an eight hour shift? Ouch,” he reclined against the couch.

“Of course not, I was distracted. How are you sweetheart?” he added in a tiny voice.

“I hope you’re talking to the kitten now.” But disagreeing with his words, his heart accelerated its rate.

“Definitely talking to the kitten. Or should I say _kitteness_?” he said after raising the poor cat in the air. It meowed in disapproval and Dirk got it back at his arms immediately.

“That word doesn’t exist in any language.”

“Not by now at least.” His face was practically glowing. “Where did you find her?”

“On my way from work. She seemed lost and didn’t have an owner so I thought ‘Why not?’”

“Does that mean we can keep her?”

“Mmm… I don’t know,” he faked indecision. Dirk was begging him with his eyes. “She’ll need someone to take care of her. Who would feed her?”

“I can!” he stood right.

“Dirk you don’t even feed yourself. _I_ have to remind you that you need to sleep, do you think you’re ready for this?”

“Of course! I am responsible, that you can’t see it is something different.” He answered in defence.

Now Todd couldn’t hide his grin anymore.

“Okay, right, we can keep her.”

Dirk came back to his games with the animal, who seemed more than excited of having a new place to discover.

“Oh, wait, we should go to the pet shop before,” he remembered, “to check she’s not sick or something.”

“Oh but I can’t get ill.” Dirk answered oblivious.

“Right, genius, but I can.” He rolled his eyes. “Is a shame we gotta wait till the night.”

“Yeah,” he gave a sad sigh, “if you only had an umbrella…”

He raised an eyebrow at him. What did he want an umbrella for?

“What did you say?”

“An umbrella,” he repeated, as if not hearing the word was the problem, “if you had one I could just stay under it, it’s a shame only rich people can afford one.”

Todd kept staring at Dirk, squinting his eyes, hoping he would notice the stupidity of his comment, but he was oblivious of his Todd’s confusion.

“Right, at this point in our friendship, I’m even scared to ask, but do you know that’s not true, right?”

“Is it not?” he asked.

“Dirk, practically everyone has an umbrella.” Todd shook his head and took a deep breath, “Is that really the only thing we needed to do for you to go out? Was it that easy?”

“Sure, what did you think?”

Dirk was standing there, with an innocent look and a smile on his face. Todd thought he was joking, but of course he wasn’t. It was Dirk he was talking about.

“And you never thought in saying that to me?”

“Well, you never told me you had an umbrella, so I think that makes us even.” He picked the cat up from under the coffee table. “Now go for that thing and let’s get going.”

After a long walk where Todd felt self-conscious about all the looks they were getting for walking with an umbrella without a drop a rain, they finally got to the nearest pet-shop. Inside, different animals turned to see them, excited with the new company, and Dirk returned the look with some amazement added to it. Todd wondered if he ever got into one of these shops.

“Well, now we just have to check her.”

“Uhm, what?” he asked turning his look apart from the fishes tank.

“Oh you’re not telling me you will drop the ‘responsible role’ so fast, aren’t you?” Todd teased him.

“But, Todd… there’re dogs over there,” he said as an excuse.

Todd dramatically glanced up at the ceiling and gave an exaggerated sigh. “Ok, you can go.”

Without skipping a beat he left the kitten in Todd’s hands and went to join the excited animals. Todd talked to the lady attending the counter, and she took the cat to prepare her for the fast examination. On the meantime, Todd turned to see how his companion was doing. Dirk was cross-legged on the floor, touching with his hand where the dog put his paw. He made funny faces at him, and after each of them, his mouth curved into a smile, his eyes glinted with joy. The corners of Todd’s own mouth quirked up.

“You must be lucky.”

“Hm, excuse me?” he reacted.

The woman was back with the kitten ―that now had a cute necklace― and a small bag with animal’s food in it. She had an accomplice look and pointed with her chin in Dirk’s direction.

“Finding someone who makes you smile like he does is hard. I’m glad you could do it.”

“Oh, no we’re…” but he was stopped before finishing by her chuckle.

“Enjoy your evening, sir.” She handed him their new pet and the food. “I think she found a good family.”

Sill confused, he grabbed his things and went back to where Dirk was. He was now playing with a French bulldog. Todd sat beside him and waited until he noticed his presence.

“Is she ready?” he asked without taking his eyes apart from the dog.

“Yeah, she is.” Todd answered. “What’s your thing with dogs? Or animals in general.”

“Hmm, I think they’re just adorable. But dogs are special, you know?”

“How’s that?” his brows drew together.

“Well, I’m not sure,” he had the ghost of a smile, “but they seem… perfect companions. Always excited to see you, always caring, loving, even if they don’t have an idea of what you’re saying―though I think they do. They’re not called ‘the man’s best friend’ for nothing, right?”

He gave Todd a short look and turned back to the small dog trying to lick his hand through the cage.

“They’re loyal. If it loves you, a dog will never leave you behind.”

“I never realised how similar to a dog you are.”

Dirk turned to him, the French bulldog momentary forgotten. There was something in his gaze, a feeling Todd couldn’t understand, but he could read his face perfectly. Eyes wrinkling at the corners, lips slightly turned up and the mouth hanging open, like wanting to say something but without having enough courage to do so. He ducked his head before letting the words out.

“I think you’re more like a cat.”

“Why would I be a cat?”

Dirk shrugged. “It seems obvious to me. Cats are grumpy. If you don’t know them you think they hate you, and they probably do. But when you’re really close, you can see the truth inside. And that is they don’t hate you all the time, and whenever you feel broken, they’re there. Laying next to you, just being around. Even if they don’t understand what’s happening, they support you. They might not be the most cheerful animals, but they are surely the ones you can always count with.”

Todd was speechless. He was looking for some words to say back when Dirk grabbed their kitten and took it close to his face.

“Besides, they’re really cute.”

And now he was breathless. Before screwing up asking who that comment was directed to, Todd made Dirk get the umbrella again to go to their home and let their pet settle down by once.

Time passed and Todd still had problems to face what was going on. Every day it was harder for him to be near Dirk without experiencing some kind of ridiculous attack over something as simple as a word or as complex as a touch. Luckily, if there was someone who enjoyed the most their life at the apartment, it was the kitten, who Dirk decided would be called _Sharkie_. Todd thought the name was absurd, but Dirk found it ironic given her size, so it stuck. One day after lunch, Dirk was playing with Sharkie in the living room as Todd was reading a book, when he got a message. It was from Amanda, asking for the confirmation of his party hat was taking place next week. Todd face palmed himself internally. The day she invited him he was going to ask Dirk about it, but with the whole gang matter he completely forgot about it.

“Dirk, how do you get with parties?” he asked returning his phone to the pocket.

“I’ve never been in one, why?”

“Well, would you… like to assist one?”

“Are you inviting me to a club? Because we already know how that went with the bar…”

“No, no, completely different,” Todd felt his cheeks warming up a the idea of both of them in a club. “Amanda’s birthday is next week, and she wanted us to go.”

“You will go?” he raised his eyebrows.

“Of course.”

“Then definitely yes!” Dirk exclaimed with a big smile. “I’m glad you’re rebuilding your relationship with her.”

“Yeah, me too…” he grinned. “In fact, there’s something funny about this, she was really surprised when I told her we were friends.”

“Ohh, I think I know why.” He giggled. “I think it has something to do with that odd deard of yours.”

“An odd dread? I don’t have any ‘odd dread’.”

“Yes you do! You see, when Farah called me to say you wanted to meet me, an absolute lie, she told me it could be difficult to approach you sometimes since you, and let me quote this ‘were terrified of vampires’, which I got truly offended.” He laughed. “I don’t understand why anyway?”

“Perhaps it’s related to the killing, or the blood sucking thing.”

“You also kill animals to eat, have you ever thought about that?”

“I’m not going to argue with you.” Todd sighed.

“No, but really, what’s the origin of that irrational thought? Because I refuse to believe it’s about a stupid Hallowing party.”

“It has nothing to do with that…” he doubted. “But maybe as stupid.”

Dirk titled his head with knitted eyebrows.

“Amanda doesn’t know about this because she was too young. I was like seven or six years old at that time. My parents forbid me from watching anything on the TV that could have blood in it, so horror movies were more than banned at my house. And as every other kid, I was pissed about that. So one night, I tried to prove them wrong.” He snorted. “I got up at 2 am. Everyone was asleep. I sneaked into the living room, turned on the TV with the lowest volume possible and sat very close. They were giving Dracula at that time. I’m not gonna say it was the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life, but to be fair I had never seen a murder from close before that. All that blood, and the bodies… it was a new experience. I remember I spent that nigh on my parents’ bed. When they asked me what happened I told them it was just a stupid nightmare. Of course they didn’t believe me.”

Now that he was in his thirties, he looked at the memory with fun. It didn’t elicit that creepy feeling anymore, but he did admit that living the real experience had brought some memories back.

“Since then, even when I grew up to be a teen, I still got that small fear in the back of my brain. I knew they weren’t real-”

Dirk gasped with faked offence.

“Okay, I believed the general knowledge of their inexistence. But knowing and feeling are two different things, you know?”

“So, and correct me if I’m wrong, you were scared of vampires most of your life because of a movie you saw when you were a kid?”

“I told you it was stupid.”

“Oh, wait, I have a better question: Were you scared of me the first time you saw me?”

“Maybe a little,” he had to admit.

“Did you even shit in your pants?” Dirk inquired with a mischievous look.

“Dirk, you’re not that scary,” he laughed.

The smile erased from the vampire’s face. When Todd became aware of this, he was staring at his pale hands.

“Dirk…”

“How are you sure of that?”

His face changed completely. The light-hearted fun wasn’t there anymore, since it’d been replaced by something darker.

“What?” Todd frowned.

“How are you sure I’m not ‘scary’. That I’m not a monster like those you see on the movies.”

“Because you can’t be.”

For him that was answer enough. There wasn’t a world in his mind where Dirk could be a monster. Bu for his friend, apparently it wasn’t the right answer.

“I’m dead;” he said with a harsh tone, “my heart has stopped; my blood is permanently stuck in my veins; I lack of any body temperature and I am pale as fuck. And if I was someone else, I would have the urge to kill to be alive.”

Dirk took a deep breath.

“Every day since I escaped, people ran away from me. You’re not he first person I tried to get close too, but you’re the first one to let me stay. To want me around. Others have seen me as a… _blood-sucker_.” His voice got sharp, speaking faster with every sentence. “Maybe that night I wasn’t mean to come back. Maybe I’m here as an intruder, someone who lives but doesn’t deserve too. I was brought back, but I died in that basement. I shouldn’t be here. That makes me wonder how different things would’ve been if I was a human. If I could eat like a normal person. If I could feel heat. If I could… be loved.”

Dirk’s voice got really tiny at the end, and for Todd it was like having a child in front to of him asking why his parents didn’t love him.

“What are you even talking about?”

Dirk raised his sight, seeming surprised for a moment.

“You yourself told me how a lot of the kids that were with you didn’t make it to the Turn. You’re not an intruder, you’re a survivor. When it was taken away, you fought for your life, which is more than any of us can say. We are here because someone gave us the gift of life, but you won it. And yeah, maybe you’re pale, and always cold and you don’t eat food for shit, but you’re here. You’re still here. Who cares about the how? What really matters is that you made it. You’re not a monster, Dirk. In any possible way.”

He was already in the run, so maybe he didn’t mind going a little further.

“And you know what? I’m glad that you’re dead. Because If you never died, if you never became a vampire, that would mean that I would  have never met you, and that’s something I would always regret.”

His mouth curved into a smile.

“Don’t you mean half-dead?”

“Oh don’t ruin the moment,” Todd rolled his eyes.

Dirk opened his mouth to speak but he was interrupted by the bell.

“Who could be on a Sunday?” Todd wondered out loud.

He got up to answer the door, so he couldn’t see how Dirk immediately stood up.

When he open the door, Todd almost jumped in his place. In the hallway was a man with a giant scar dividing his face on half. To top it off, as he was smiling his skin stretched in the edges making the view a little worse for Todd’s eyes.

“Hello, I am form the local police, there’s been some complaints about your apartment this days, Mr….”

“Brotzman,” he hurried to say.

“Yes…”

Without asking for permission he walked past Todd to give a look to the apartment. Now that Todd wasn’t so scared he noticed how the man walked in an almost military step, with his back straight up and his hands locked behind his back.

“Sorry, but what’s your name again?” he inquired already feeling a little suspicious.

“People outside the field call me by many names,” he said while inspecting the walls, “but at work they call me Mr. Priest.”

Todd froze in his place. His mouth went dry and the words didn’t want to get out, as scared as him at the presence of the man he so badly had heard about from Dirk. He managed to ruin the courage to ask one question as Mr. Priest approached the windows.

“And why were you sent here?”

“You live alone, isn’t it right Mr. Brotzman?” he answered with another question, clearly avoiding the first one. Todd felt he had to act cautious with this situation. And where the hell was Dirk?

“Yeah, only me.” He looked everywhere with his eyes without making it suspicious but he didn’t have any idea of where Dirk could be.

Mr. Priest opened the curtains, letting the light of the sun invade the whole room. Todd blinked a few times, not used to the natural light in that ambient. The man looked at him with a plain expression and an eyebrow lifted.

“You don’t seem so used to the light,” he spoke slowly. Then he turned around, opening the rest of the windows and erasing in the process any shadow that could be left. Todd was feeling a little sweaty, anxiety filling him up with every step Mr. Priest gave.

“Do you have any catholic belonging in this place?”

“What kind of question is that?” he crossed his arms over his chest.

“I’m the one making the questions.” He walked until his face was at less than a metre to Todd’s face. “You should be careful with how you direct to me, Mr. Brotzman. You have no idea of the trouble I can make.”

Todd had to restrain himself from answering something that could get him into said trouble. However, the breath got caught in his throat, making it impossible to say a word. Seeing him walk in the silence of his apartment with that rigid look he couldn’t help but imagine what he has done years ago. The same hands touching everything around his bathroom being stained with blood, more than often not his, and hurting kids until they wished they were dead, even after more than ten years.

Priest stepped aside going directly to Todd’s bedroom. Todd didn’t know why, but he was completely sure Dirk was hiding there. He hurried to follow him into the room, where Priest made sure there wasn’t any place to hide for a creature of the night. He saw him inspecting meticulously every corner without finding what he was looking for. The strange man picked up a frame with the photo Amanda and Farah gave him for the last Christmas they spent together. It was a photo with the two of them in it. Apparently he didn’t find it interesting. He proceeded to crouch and look under the bed, while Todd was at the edge of fainting right there, when the sound of an object falling from the kitchen top claimed their attention. Priest raised his head to look at him, his cold eyes shining with confidence.

“You’re not so alone after all, huh?” Priest left the room before letting him answer.

Todd followed him again, begging to any god, maybe even the Universe, to make Dirk disappear before this man could find him. But when they made it to the living room, the only thing they found was the kitten coming out from the kitchen’s door. Todd almost sighed on relief. Priest clicked his tongue.

“Is a cat,” he expressed how disgusted he was.

“A kitten, actually,” Todd was more than happy to correct. “Her name is Sharkie.”

Priest looked at him with the same face he gave to the kitten.

“You named a cat _Sharkie_?”

He shrugged. It sounded better on his head.

“Okay, I think everything it's in order.” He walked to the door and waited for Todd to open it.

“You’ve got a-” he looked one last time around “-nice house, Mr. Brotzman.”

“Thank you.”

“Although I recommend calling me if you see anything weird,” he shook his hand.

“Weird like what?” Todd faked confusion.

“Just call and ask for Mr. Priest,” he winked.

Priest went down the hallway whistling some melody Todd couldn't recognise, but when he finally disappeared of his sight, the air returned to his lungs. As fast as he could Todd closed the door, running immediately calling for Dirk’s name around the apartment in a whisper in case it wasn’t safe to say it out loud. He heard something hitting hard against his bedroom floor, and crawling under his bed, Dirk got out looking paler than usual, if that was possible. He was shaking his head, hands trembling at his sides, while whispering some words.

“He found me, he’s going to come back, oh my God, I’m going to die,” he said, his tongue moving as fast as his eyes, who seemed to be looking for an exit. Dirk was shaking his head in a total disaster, completely denying listening to Todd’s tries of calming him down.

“Hey, everything’s alright.”

“But you don’t know him, Todd,” he grabbed Todd by the shoulders, shaking him at every word. “He’s going to come back to do his job, he knows where I am. He’ll put my head on a stick!”

“Stop!”

Todd caught Dirk’s hands and pressed them together. He could feel them trembling, so he tried to steady them by maintaining them stable. Dirk was still agitated, his breath still heavy, but at least his eyes were only focused on Todd now.

“I talked to him,” Todd assured him. “He doesn’t know you’re here and doesn’t know we know each other. You’re safe. I’ve got your back.”

“He’ll never come back?” he asked.

“Never.”

For the days next to the encounter with the hunter, Dirk’s attitude had differed a lot from what it usually was. Any sudden noise will quickly catch his attention, his eyes acting like the ones from a scared deer in the woods; going silent out of nowhere just to hear if there was someone outside. It was more than obvious saying Todd got worried about this, so every time Dirk stepped inside of this panic mode, it was Todd’s job to take him out of it with anything he could came up. This used to be followed by a thankful grin coming from the vampire.

It got to the point where Todd even asked him if he preferred staying at home instead of going to the party, but Dirk insisted in going anyways, saying that a good party perhaps could lift his mood.

The day in question he felt really nervous. On their way from their home to Amanda’s, he fed Dirk up with constant stupid questions, non-sense indications and a lot of what-ifs. Dirk had to remind him each time they were going to his sister’s birthday party, not Hell itself, but for Todd, they were more or so the same thing.

When they knocked Farah received them with a big smile. Dirk immediately went to give her a hug, one that she answered a little reluctant but still affectionately. He knew how much she didn’t like physical contact with people but he guessed Dirk was an odd exception to that rule.

“I didn’t think you were really coming,” she said to him.

“Ha-ha, very funny,” he mocked her.

Farah invited them to come in, and at the moment he set a foot inside, he noticed how different the house he had visited so many times was. The beige walls were exactly the same, but with no photos hanging here. Instead, a lot of strange designs made with graffiti decorated most of the surfaces. There were paper cups everywhere and all the furniture had streamers of varying colours. But the thing that stood out the most was the people. Following Farah he saw some girls giggling while mixing some pink and purple brewages. His nose wrinkled at the smell and hoped they weren’t the ones in charge of the drinks. Then a group of boys and girls with very different ages were arguing very loudly with glasses filled with a russet liquid in their hands. He hoped that was just really red wine, but by the look they gave him he wasn’t that sure. A little further some bodies were laughing at the joke of another guy. And he said bodies because any of them had their heads.  From the shoulders to their feet they looked normal, cool clothes and all, hands in their stomach from laughing too much, but on the top he saw no hair or face. The man who made the joke wore a fancy blue striped suit. His face was perfectly symmetrical, and Todd would even say he was handsome except for the ram’s horns at the side of his head. He winked an eye at them while they were passing by and Todd almost said something, but he noticed Dirk hurrying Farah and avoiding looking in the man’s direction. Todd frowned at the guy who smiled a little too much for only being drinking from his stupidly elegant glass.

Farah told them that Amanda was at the kitchen, and from the window he could see her shouting with a wide smile on her lips. She saw him too and immediately went out to happily greet them.

“Todd! You’re really here!” she gave him a short but strong hug.

“I told you I was coming, right?”

“And you must be Dirk,” Amanda quirked an eyebrow.

“Yes, Dirk Gently,” he shook her hand, which Amanda found very funny. “Farah and Todd told me a lot about you.”

“I hope good stuff. Hey, I was just talking to some friends you should meet. Martin!” she yelled.

“Wait, Martin?” Todd repeated wide-eyed.

Four known figures emerged from the door, the three men surrounding Martin howling at the top of their lungs. But when they saw each other, the laughs died and were replaced by narrowed looks. Todd even thought he heard a growl.

“Uhm, guys?” Amanda said, “Is there something you haven’t told me?”

“They are your friends?”

“Do you know this two guys?”

Martin and Todd spoke at the same time. Amanda was oblivious of the tension between them, and if she wasn’t then she didn’t care at all to point that out.

“Guys, he is my brother Todd and his friend Dirk.”

“You’re drummer’s brother?” said the younger of them.

“Drummer?” Dirk asked. “Who’s drummer?”

“Me,” Amanda raised her hand. “They heard me playing the drums and they said I’m punk.”

“Cool, Amanda, but, who are they?”

Todd was trying to keep the biggest distance from the group, who kept looking at him as a dog would look at a cat. Amanda stood in the middle and grabbed Todd’s and Martin’s hands.

“Todd, they are my friends: Martin, Cross, Gripps and Vogle, more known as the Rowdy 3. They’re werewolves.”

“They’re what?”

“Now, shake hands,” and she joined their hands putting them in that awkward situation where Martin was still scanning him from down to up. Todd leaned towards Amanda.

“Sis, there are four of them,” he whispered.

“You’re really observant,” she rolled her eyes.

“Thanks Todd for stating the obvious,” Dirk joined the whisper party.

“And you must be a vampire, right little guy?” Martin grabbed Dirk by his shoulder, nicer than in the bar that night. “Guys, why don’t we show drummer’s friends how polite we can be?”

And in a swirl of yells and howls from the Rowdies and some complains coming from Dirk, they left the Brotzman siblings alone. Todd felt a little bad for him, but he supposed if they were really friends of Amanda, they weren’t going to do anything she didn’t allow.

They summed in an awkward silence, where the intention to speak was noticeable in both, but neither got the guts to start first. When he opened the mouth also Amanda did, resulting in a stumble between “I should’ve told you-” and “I’m really sorry that I-”. They laughed and lowered their glance.

“You go first, it’s your birthday after all.”

“No, you go first, I wanna hear you.”

“Okay,” he sighed, “but don’t be so hard with me. I was going to say that I am really sorry of how I reacted to your… truth-telling. I got angry and I shouldn’t have, because it was practically my fault that you hid things like that from me.”

“What?” she stopped him. “No, that’s not what happened. I lied to you because I was scared of what you could say.”

“Exactly,” Todd continued, “and with my reaction I only made things worse. I was an asshole, and blamed you for the things that I thought I deserved,  I made you think that I didn’t accept you, but that’s not true. Because I love you more than anything, you’re the most important person of my life and there’s nothing I would hate more than losing you over a stupid thing like your sorcery.”

She snorted, “It’s not sorcery Todd.”

“Then whatever,” he smiled. “I don’t care about what you did or what you do, I care about who you are. And you are my sister, reason enough for me to forget about all that mater.”

“No, what I did was also wrong,” he shook her head. “I should have told you the truth, and I didn’t and I’m sorry. But I promise that from now and on I will be completely honest about all this Witchakookoo stuff.”

“That’s great to me.”

Todd didn’t think it was that easy. The whole conversation must’ve lasted three minutes, and now Amanda was looking at him with a small warm smile, probably a reflect of his. One girl passed by with a couple of beers and Amanda took two cans, giving one to her brother.

“So, what do you think about the party?” she queried while sitting on a table.

“It’s… good. Nice, I guess. Just completely different from the parties I’ve been.” He looked at his can before taking a sip. “Though I’m a little bit worried about Dirk over there, should I?”

In the distance, Dirk was standing with his arms stuck at his sides and the Rowdies around him were making a mess of the place He put nervous smiles faking having fun as some other guys, presumably werewolves too for their similarity to Amanda’s friends, joined to the disaster. Knowing Farah, Todd was sure she would freak out once the party was over.

“Don’t worry about him,” she laughed. “They won’t do anything to him. And speaking of which, how happened that you, almost a vampire hunter, became _besties_ with one of your worst nightmares?”

She was surely mocking him, and Todd tried to be indifferent about it, but his smile kind of sold him out.

“You would not believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.” Her playful smile was everything for Todd.

“He entered through my window.” He answered with an amused look.

She lifted her eyebrows waiting for the punch line that never came. As Todd remained silent she tilted her head with her mouth hanging open.

“No,” she slowly shook her head with a funny expression, “I don’t believe you.”

“Told you,” he laughed.

“He seems like a nice guy,” she looked at him in the distance. “And also nothing like a vampire.”

“He is,” he followed her eyes. “You’ve got no idea.”

Someone called Amanda for help with some drinks. She said she had to go but asked Todd to have fun without her. At first he thought that was going to be hard, since he lost Dirk in the crowd too, but after some time with the rest of her friends he learned a few things. The guys with the weird wine ―that now he knew was blood― was a clan of vampires really creepy but also funny. Their sense of humour was a little different, but from time to time they got a laugh out of him, without mention that they didn’t bite him for being under oath for Amanda. The werewolves were a little too excited in his opinion, and he didn’t really agree with his ‘let’s throw the house for the window’ politic but they knew how to keep the mood of the celebration up. Plus, they always had a drink for you, what Todd thanked more than once. And the decapitated bodies were… well, they were an experience by themselves. What really bothered Todd was the horned guy. He was a demon, as he told Todd, with a name too complicated for him to remember, and he was constantly showing off his ‘great powers’. For Todd he was just an arrogant peasant. Without counting with the fact that he asked him more than once about Dirk.

“Hey, _shortie_.” He didn’t mind to remember his name, and that gave Todd more reasons to forget his. “Are you sure that you don’t know where the cute vampire is, right?”

“No, I don’t,” he answered irritably. “And his name is Dirk, for your information.”

“Hmm… nice name. If you see him let him know that I can-”

“Mephistopheles!” someone called him, “Come over!”

“Gotta go, _Toad_ , see you later.”

With an impertinent wink he walked away from Todd, who only had more desires of punching his damned beautiful face. Todd was about to start looking for a new group when someone rushed past him and almost knocked him down.

“Hey, dude, be more… Dirk?”

“Todd!” his friend beamed at him, helping him tidy his clothes again. “Oh I was looking for you.”

“Where’ve you been?” Todd returned the smile. He stopped Dirk from helping him―though he wasn’t helping that much―by grabbing his hands. Something jumped in his chest with the contact, but he didn’t want to back off neither.

“First I was with Amanda’s friends, who were too excited if you ask me, but they were great. They didn’t beat me this time!” he rushed. “Also, Amanda came later, Todd she’s great, very funny. And they gave me loads of drinks, some of them a little strong to my taste, but they weren’t that bad. Then I went with the vampires, and Todd you wouldn’t believe me, they were so dark. I still can’t believe we are from the same species. But then I went with the werewolves again, and they were amazing. They said I was punk! That is a good thing right?”

“Well, yeah, but you should stop spending so much time with Amanda, you’re starting to speak like her and it’s been what, two hours?”

“Guys! You’re here!”

Amanda came almost tripping over with two glasses in her hand. They helped her to stand still in her place. When she spoke again, her tone was a little too giggly and her body tilted to the sides.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“With the witches we made a cool things,” she avoided him completely, “get this.”

And she gave them a glass for each. In his Todd saw the same liquid that smelled like garbage when he first entered the party, except that this time it had another scent. Besides, the colour had also pints of blue in it.

“What is this?”

“Magical booze!” she raised her arms in celebration. “We’re giving it to everyone so we can all get drunk tonight!”

“Um, Amanda I can’t get drunk” Dirk clarified. “My metabolism…”

“Dirk, friend, let me tell you a secret.” Amanda leaned over on Dirk’s ear and whispered a little too loud to let it not be a whisper at all. “It’s magical. Literally anyone can get drunk with this.”

Todd looked around and saw that everyone had a glass of the strange drink in their hands. Some of them were even refilling their cups. He thanked his sister and decided to join the rest.

This was the moment where things started to go savage. People dancing on the tables, stepping on the chairs, playing baseball with cushions and doing piggyback fights. In the middle of all that mess, Dirk and Todd were giggling like high school girls on the couch of Amanda’s living room. Dirk was sat normally, but Todd, on the other hand, was laying on the couch with his head resting on Dirk’s lap. He didn’t remember what was so funny, he only knew that it was hilarious. His sides hurt from laughing too much and the air had escaped from his lungs as they tried to settle down.

“Your eyes are too big,” Dirk said with narrowed eyes.

“And yours are too small,” he said back.

“But they’re also really blue,” he added thoughtfully. “Like ocean blue, that is really pretty. Not the stupid sky blue that mine have.”

“What do you mean? I like your eyes,” Todd pocked Dirk’s cheek, trying to make him smile. It worked.

“But yours are more pretty,” the vampire made a pout.

“Wait, do you know what you’re talking about? Have you seen yourself in a mirror? Wait.” Todd sat up looking at Dirk with a teasing face. “Can you see yourself in a mirror?”

“Oh. My. God.” Dirk exaggeratedly rolled his eyes. “Your knowledge about the myths of vampires is completely absurd.”

“Yes, we all know that,” he pushed his comment away, “but, can you?”

Dirk glared at him before snorting.

“No, I can’t,” he said avoiding his look.

Todd couldn’t suppress the laugh, and he almost fell over from the couch if Dirk didn’t help him to steady himself. He had a fake hurt attitude, and Todd couldn’t let this moment pass.

“So, how do you do your hair every day?”

“Easy, I do it blindly and then I wait for your reaction. If you look at me more than once in a second, it means it’s bad; but if you simply smile, then it’s alright.”

“And how do you notice that?”

“Pfft, how  could I not?” Dirk shrugged. “I stare at you all the day.”

Todd felt his stomach fluttering. He cleared his throat to speak in a way that could be understandable, but his tongue tied anyway.

“Do you really-”

“Hey, man, we need the couch is that alright?” asked a werewolf with his arm on a witch’ waist.

They left them the space they needed, but when they started to make out leaning on them, both agreed it was time to leave them alone.

“Let’s go somewhere with less people,” Dirk took Todd’s hand and guided him through the house.

The hallways were all crowded, and some rooms being used for things Todd didn’t want to know. When he found an empty room, Dirk launched them inside. Turning on the light, Todd saw it was the bathroom. It was a small room by itself, and with all the bath supplies, there was only space for the two of them to be confronted with less than a metre between them.

“Wasn’t there a better option to hide?”

“Mmm, you haven’t seen what I have seen,” Dirk looked at him with wide eyes. “Believe me when I say that I saved you from those places.”

Todd clicked his tongue, “Whatever, let’s go and find somewhere else.”

He tried opening the door, but it was locked. No matter all the times he tried, the door didn’t gave up.

“So?” Dirk inquired. “Why don’t you open it?”

“I can’t,” Todd tried pulling instead of pushing. Nothing.

He pressed his ear against the door. On the outside, besides the sound of the music, he could hear that someone was cackling, pushing him with the movements of their body. That person was blocking the door, so any try Todd could do was for nothing.

“We’re stuck,” he crossed his arms and rested his back on the door.

“Well, you have to think positive.” Dirk shrugged as he reclined in the hand wash.

“What can be positive about being locked in a bathroom?”

“For example, for me it’s that I could be locked with that creepy and weird demon that’s been chasing me all night long.” Todd frowned at the mention of Mephisto-something. “But I’m with you.”

The smile in Dirk’s lips was pure, and Todd noticed again the mix of emotions expressed in his eyes. They were too close, he only had to give another step to be centimetres away from them. He gulped. When he talked his voice sounded small compared to how they’ve been talking before.

“Sorry that I bring this back, but do you remember the time we spoke about you, well, being dead?”

“Yeah, what about that?”

“I remember you said you didn’t think you could be loved.” Todd frowned. “At the time, because I was being a stupid coward, I forgot to tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“That that was the biggest lie I’ve ever heard on my life.”

Todd didn’t have an idea of how was he saying that, but now that he started, he had to say it all. Or at least the most he could.

“I think I can understand your point. ‘I’m dead, I have no heart, I can’t be loved’. However, that has nothing to do with the truth, which is that how could someone not love you?” His mouth was dry, and Dirk listened to him very carefully. “Your heart might be stopped, and you can feel like you’re not alive, but what really shows the incredible vitality in you are your eyes.”

“What do my eyes have to do with that?” he frowned.

“Everything, Dirk,” Todd smiled. “I know for sure that if I look at them I can see exactly what you’re feeling most of the time.  Every emotion, every intention, it’s clear. Your heart can’t beat for anyone, that’s something that you and I know, but your eyes can speak for it instead. And it’s just beautiful, because I think that there’s nothing better than looking at someone and knowing how much in love they are with you.”

And silently, in the bottom of his heart, Todd hoped that he could get to see that reflected in Dirk’s eyes. Because even if he couldn’t see himself, he was more than sure that it was the same look he had.

Dirk’s lips parted, and Todd’s eyes followed their movement. That didn’t go unnoticed by Dirk, who in the smallest voice finally answered to him.

“I have a question for you.”

His eyes were bright, that clear sky blue Dirk said he hated so much shinning with curiosity and shyness.

“If I were to do something with this state of mind, that could be a misinterpretation and ruin it all… would you forgive me?”

Todd couldn’t talk, his tongue seemed to be paralyzed in his mouth, so he just gave him a short nod as an answer. Visibly taking courage, Dirk nodded back. He slowly got up, giving the step that consisted the stupid space between them, standing as close as he could to Todd. There the slight height difference was plain to see. And for a brief moment, he saw the intention on Dirk’s eyes. The vampire rested his hand on the door on Todd’s back, and with a low pace, he leaned down until Todd could feel his breath mixing with his. And they closed their eyes, ready for the start of something new when the door opened behind them throwing them to the floor.

The people were running and screaming, sirens hearing from the outside as the blue and red lights illuminated the front of the house. A guy ran past them and came back to help them get up.

“What the hell is going on?” Todd yelled over the screams of the rest.

“Police came!” the man answered. “They don’t know what we are, if they see this they’re gonna out us!”

“What about Amanda?” he worried. What was she going to do?

“She’ll be fine, dud, now run!”

Todd grabbed Dirk’s hand and went to the back of the house to the laundry room, where there was a window big enough to let them scape. Once they were out, they ran to the nearest station ―that was far enough from his sister’s house― and relaxed in the seats of the nearly empty bus. Todd took out his phone and gave a call to Amanda. She said she was fine, that the magic would be enough to fix it all and convince the cops it wasn’t the mess her neighbours reported. With a sigh, he relaxed on his place and waited until he and Dirk finally got home.

 

* * *

 

The day after the party, once the reality of what had happened fell down over Todd, he wanted to bury himself under the ground. He almost kissed Dirk. No, _Dirk_ almost kissed _him_. Well, they almost kissed. And all of that under the effect of an unknown magical drink that could get drunk even o the strongest werewolves. What was he thinking? Or maybe the problem was that he wasn’t thinking. Until he knew, his friendship could be over for the non-sense ideas he got into Dirk’s mind, words he had hidden in the bottom of his mind reached to his ears. Who would’ve say a little of alcohol and a few words were enough to screw it all?

And to top it all, Dirk acted completely oblivious to the whole situation. When Todd couldn’t look at him in the eye, Dirk always put his best smile, cheerfully addressing the situation in a way that everything seemed to go back to normality. But Todd knew him enough to read beyond his facade, and the subtle jumps when they touched, the trembling of his hands when they were near Todd, that was not overlooked. So instead of facing the problem and speak it up, he decided to avoid it, and that meant avoiding Dirk too. Todd started to go early to work and work extra hours. He set up loads of meeting with his friends from work jus to avoid having dinner at his place. And when he was at home, he tried to be in a totally different room from Dirk. Going to bed early using the hotel as an excuse, moving from the living room to the kitchen and back to his bedroom. He faked being sick for an _entire day_.

At first, Dirk tried to connect with him despite his efforts to stay away, but with the passing of days, and seeing that Todd pushed him away every time, he simply stopped trying. That was the moment when Todd feared losing him the most, but he was as lost as Dirk was, not knowing how to get out of the problem they got into.

One day, when Todd was tuning his guitar’s strings, he saw Dirk coming out of the kitchen with his iconic yellow jacket in direction to the door.

“Where’re you going?”

“Oh,” he acted surprised, “Hi Todd! I didn’t know you talked to me now.”

“It’s like 10 pm,” he avoided the annoyed comment. “What do you have to do outside?”

“I was just going for a walk… Do you wanna come?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Yes, I heard you,” Dirk rolled his eyes. “But are you coming or you’ll keep acting as if I didn’t live here.”

“You know that’s not…”

“Coming or not?” Dirk’s glare burned in his own eyes.

“Ok, I’ll go. Just let me go and grab a coat first.”

They walked down the streets in the opposite direction to the bar where they had the fight that famous night. Dirk was taking the lead, walking with his eyes looking forward as Todd followed. He had no idea where Dirk wanted to go, so he was sort of disappointed when the final destination resulted to be the woods of the park. It was all dark, and the only thing that illuminated the path was the moon and Todd’s phone. Dirk led him through the trees, where Todd found a lot of trouble trying to keep up with the pace since his feet decided to hook with every root that stood out from the ground. However, Dirk knew the road way better, because Todd hadn’t seen him trip once and given his usual clumsiness that would’ve been a miracle otherwise.

When Dirk stopped, Todd collided into his back. The light from the phone was no longer necessary because Dirk took him to a clearing where the light of the moon illuminated all the ground. Outside this halo, the darkness swallowed the rest of the woods. It was just Dirk, him and the nature being the main characters under the reflector.

While Todd was looking all around, Dirk was standing in the middle, eyes locked in the grass underneath, sill as another tree from the background. The silence between them was suffocating. Todd didn’t want it to be this way. He preferred the ramblings, the incredibly ridiculous stories, the laughs they shared during the months they’ve known each other. Todd wanted to say something, anything that could make things be like before. He wanted to stop running from Dirk, but he couldn’t do it. There was still that string around his neck that said if Todd talked about what’s been happening, he would lose Dirk once and for all.

“Do you know what this place is?” Dirk finally spoke.

Todd lifted his head to look at him. Under the moonlight, where everything was bathed in white tones, Dirk’s features were all silver, sharp in his cheekbones, soft in his lips. I was an image Todd wanted to keep forever.

“Here’s where I stayed  before moving with you. Every day, when I had to stay under cover, I couldn’t find a better place to be trapped. Cause even if I couldn’t touch the light, I could see it. Right here.”

He opened his arms at his sides, looking at Todd. He looked hurt. At that moment, Todd hated Dirk’s transparency, because it let show with great ease how hard was for him the time they’ve been avoiding this conversation.

“Here, it was all sunlight. I was over there,” he pointed to the shadows, “but I could see it and fantasize about how it could feel being able to touch it.”

He lowered his arms, his voice being almost a whisper.

“I didn’t feel like I was in a cage.”

Dirk clenched his hands in two fists and give a step closer to him.

“Do you know where else I feel safe?”

Todd shrugged.

“With you.”

The determination in Dirk’s eyes made him step back, get speechless.

“I spent most of my life hiding, wandering, hoping there was no one behind me following with a knife. I lived scared. But when I found you, you gave me a home. You gave me a place to stay when the sun was up where I wasn’t alone. You gave me a friend who I could count with, and that’s more than anyone has ever done to me.”

Todd felt he colour leaving his face. He wanted to be able to tell him how grateful he was for that, but his mind and the second part of Dirk's speech didn't give him a chance.

“And you know what is worse?” he started walking around in circle, no longer looking at Todd. He was talking more to himself than to his friend, “That I could’ve seen this coming. I should’ve know that with my luck and the stupid Universe it was impossible that I could keep a friendship like yours. Something had to screw it up, something had to ruin the only good thing I could get on my own.”

The guilt was heavier now. Todd didn’t know Dirk felt that way, that he blamed him from taking away his best friend. He gulped, gathering the strength needed to explain himself when Dirk interrupted him again.

“But I had to throw it away. I had to start feeling things about you,” his voice loaded with self-loathing.

Todd’s eyes widened, his mouth hanging open as his eyebrows knitted together.

“Don’t act surprised, you know it’s not a secret,” Dirk turned around to face Todd again. “I’m sorry, okay? I swear it wasn’t my intention, but with you I felt like… like it was right. Like I finally found someone who felt right.”

His voice cracked. Todd’s palms were getting sweaty, even with the low temperatures.

“And then the party happened, and I did that stupid kissy-thing, and you lied to me right there.” Dirk sighed and passed his hands through his face, trying to push back the tears that could already be heard in the way he talked. “Could you please say something at least? Because I feel like I’m doing all of this and you’re looking at me like I am an idiot.”

“I haven’t lied to you.”

“Of course you did!” he exclaimed. “You said you were going to forgive me if I was wrong and you clearly didn’t.”

And he could see the reason behind the jumps, and the trembling and the fake smiles trying to hold all their shit together. All this time Todd knew what he felt, the problem was that he thought Dirk knee it too. But for him, the one who tried to kiss Todd and then got nothing but indifference, he knew why Dirk was so upset.

“Look, I get you.” his voice rose imploringly. “I understand, really. But can’t you see that I miss you? Don’t you think I miss talking to you until you have to go to sleep? I promise I will forget about how I feel, it’ll pass, but please, _please_ , can you stop avoiding me?”

“But I don’t want it to pass,” he replied softly.

Dirk didn’t say anything but kept looking at him more confused than before. Todd, sick of the situation, the misunderstandings, the waiting for something he didn’t know he could get, grabbed Dirk by the jacket and drew him closer to him, making their lips find each other in the middle. At first it felt rough, but once Dirk reacted to what was happening, resting his hands on Todd’s waist and embracing his lips, things got quite special. They moved slowly, taking their time, letting the other enjoy every second of that wonderful moment. Todd released the grip of the lapels of Dirk’s jacket and took his hands to the back of Dirk's neck, taking part of his hair between his fingers. Dirk leaned a little more on Todd, forcing him unconsciously to open his mouth and deepen the kiss. The dizziness of his mind and the tingling on his fingertips was worth every second. When the kiss ended, it took Dirk a few seconds to open his eyes. And in them Todd saw bewilderment.

“I love you,” he simply said.

It came out of nowhere, three important words launched into the air. The same three words he got stuck in his throat for months, wanting to get out and be heard, but that he wasn’t aware of. But now it didn’t matter. Because he knew it was true, and now that he could say it without losing Dirk, he wanted to yell them from the top of a mountain.

“I love you,” Todd repeated. “I love how you laugh, I love how you look at me, I love how you talk and just say what you want because you don't really care. I love being around you and I have for a long time, and if at some point I made you think that I didn't I'm more than willing to convince you that I'm saying the truth.”

“You love me?”

And there, right in that second, is when Todd saw the look. The look he was waiting to see in those sky blue eyes since he fell in love with them. For the emotion, he leaned over again to kiss those damn lips one more time because he couldn’t believe the luck that he had. It was funny to think that who they were now, where they got, and who they decided to be together, started with a stranger climbing through his window on a Halloween night.

 


End file.
